


Everything A Big Bad Wolf Could Want

by melancholymango



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Anal Sex, Bestiality, Blood Drinking, Breeding Kink, Enemies to Lovers, Evil Vampires, Exhibitionism, Forbidden Love, Hurt/Comfort, Knotting, M/M, Monsterfucking, Mutual Pining, Outdoor Sex, Possessive Sex, Power Bottom Keith (Voltron), Public Sex, Rough Sex, Top Lance (Voltron), Vampire Keith (Voltron), Werewolf Lance (Voltron), but just to be safe, idk man i dont think it is bc lance is still IN his right mind as a wolf, the main sex scene happens before he transforms though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 00:08:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 46,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20985548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melancholymango/pseuds/melancholymango
Summary: “Let me make myself very fucking clear.”“What?”“If and when I want you, I’ll ask. I’ll call your name and expect you to come running with your tail wagging behind you. Like a dog to a bone.” Keith gently grips Lance’s jaw and turns it upward. He moves in close, exhaling a breath against Lance’s lips, watches as blue eyes fluttered obediently closed. Keith smirks, then whispers into the inch of space between their mouths, tone sultry. “Awrf. Awrf.”"Fuck you."





	Everything A Big Bad Wolf Could Want

**Author's Note:**

> you know, posting werewolf fics with knotting and breeding kinks is always such a trip? im wearing my kinky heart on my sleeve here, y'all BETTER handle it with care.

There's a chill in the air that has Keith wishing he'd fed recently, so he could cuddle deeper into his coat and expect to warm back up. As it is, he's wearing five layers in a desperate attempt to hold the little amounts of heat he throws inside. It's only October, it shouldn't  _ be _ this cold. 

His scowl only deepens as he approaches the plaza, eyes scanning until they fall on the slouched form sitting on the edge of the fountain. Keith slows down then, until he's sneaking, footfalls fleeting and light, so quiet that not even the most adept of predators could hear him, let alone a measly human.

The stranger straightens up like a bolt, head turning in his direction. Keith stumbles in shock, eyes blown wide at being caught. That doesn't make sense, he was being so-

Nevermind. It doesn't matter. It's not like he was a typical vampire hunting in the shadows, going for the kill just for the sport of it. He's not a killer. He's just hungry. Starving even. 

Keith lifts his hand in a wave, jogging toward the boy. He can’t make out a face from here underneath that hood, but Hunk had assured him he would love this guy. Sure, Hunk was setting them up thinking they'd fall in love or whatever, he probably wasn't expecting Keith to see his friend and immediately start sizing him up as a snack but… well, everyone has to eat. 

“Hey.” Keith breathes, falling onto the concrete of the fountain beside his blind date. Despite how sluggish he is after going nearly a week without feeding, he's vibrating with energy now. He can hear the steady pulse of a beating heart, practically taste the iron flooding his mouth. 

He needs this. 

“Hey, baby. You wanna have a good time? My rates are very reasonable. Two-hundred an hour, two-fifty if you want to leave marks and mar my pretty brown skin. Whadaya say, handsome?”

It takes Keith a moment to shake off the initial shock of thinking Hunk has set him up with a prostitute for it to register. He recognizes that voice, and he realizes like a punch to the gut. If his heart was racing in his chest before, now it’s going supernova. This can’t be happening. Oh fuck.

Slowly, almost smug about it, Lance peels the hood back from his face. He's wearing this shit eating grin, toothy and feral… wolfish. Keith heats up in irritation almost immediately. 

“Lance, leave me alone. I don't have time for your bullshit today.”

“Oh, should we reschedule then? How does bullshit on Sunday sound?” Lance purrs, leaning into Keith's side and making himself all too comfortable there. “Look at you, pretty boy. All dressed up, wearing your fuck-me leather jacket, and you even brushed your hair. You must be waiting for somebody, huh?”

There are few people on this planet that have mastered the art of getting under Keith Kogane’s skin quite like Lance McClain has. As a matter of fact, Lance might be the ruling champion at it. There’s just something about the confidence he exudes, like he’s god’s greatest gift to the universe. The way he so plainly and openly chases after Keith, flirty and cool despite all the rejections he’s wracked up under his belt by now. There is nothing in this world that seems capable of taking Lance’s giant ego down a peg and Keith hates him for it.

It doesn’t help that he’s a werewolf, the very thing that Keith’s DNA make-up is intrinsically designed to despise. He’s not sure why it is, only that that’s the way it is and always has been, for far longer than Keith himself has been a vampire. He was only turned six months ago, a baby as far as vampires go, a fledgling in the coven. But one of the first lessons he’d been taught was to stay far, far away from werewolves. Never turn your back around them.

“What's it to you?”

“Just wondering.” Lance dismisses Keith easily, shrugging his shoulders and gesturing vaguely with his hand. He turns then, winking up at Keith. Quieter, more personal, he whispers another question filled with implication. His voice is low, deep, sensual almost. “Lucky guy or gal?”

“Still none of your business.” Keith grunts, shoving Lance away from him. He doesn’t move to leave yet though, which really is his first mistake of many. Lance is just that type of guy, takes the smallest sign of indifference as encouragement. He sees what he wants to see. 

He’s a pest. An annoyance. An idiot.

And he’s… infuriatingly attractive.

“Is it something serious this time? Or are you just looking for some poor bastard to seduce and then suck off? You know, in the less sexy way, with fangs.”

“You’re disgusting.” Keith hisses at him, upper lip curling back in disgust, exposing his elongated fangs. In truth, he can’t help it, whenever he’s around Lance they have a tendency of just sliding out of his gums and making themselves known with an aching unlike any other. And sure, maybe it is just a primal response to being in close quarters with his mortal (immortal?) enemy… but it feels like something else. Something hungrier.

See, Lance doesn’t actually smell unappetizing. All of the other vampires went on and on about how disgusting werewolf blood was, how it put them off their meal if they could smell it even a mile away, it was so pungent and foul. Keith tries desperately to understand where they’re coming from, but Lance smells like sunshine, like the heat beating down on his skin before he was turned and it began to hurt him to stay in direct sunlight for too long. There’s nothing bad about the way Lance’s blood smells, if anything it’s a sick temptation Keith can’t shake whenever he’s around him. 

Maybe it’s morbid curiosity, the appeal of the forbidden fruit… Keith isn’t sure.

“Hey, you’re the one who takes advantage of people and drinks them like juice boxes.”

“I don’t take advantage of anyone, I just drink what I need to survive and then move on.”

“Yeah, but they don’t give it up consensually, they’d probably run screaming if they actually knew what you were. Your whole vampire hypno sex charm thing is the only reason they don’t.” Lance says it like he isn’t insulting Keith’s very being, like it’s a flippant comment about the weather and not the inherent morality about being a vampire. Keith hates how he manages to make everything sound casual, light and airy, even when they both know it’s not. God, would it kill him to take something serious for once in his life?

Keith hates him.

Keith really, really hates him.

Keith hates his dumb laugh, and his pretty eyes, and the musky scent of pine he carries with him everywhere he goes, and… you know what, Keith doesn’t have to list the specifics. All that matters is that he hates Lance. A lot.

“Sounds like taking advantage of them to me, just saying.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Keith growls out, getting to his feet just for the satisfaction of looking down at Lance, his expression cold and icy. “Why don’t you go knock up one of the neighborhood dogs and leave me alone.”

“Oof, that stings, it burns me to my core. The dog jokes truly never get old.” Lance places a hand over his heart, like he’s been fatally wounded by the comment. “You know, I have guys _ and _ girls lining up to get a piece of me and I don’t even have to ask nicely. It’s a shame you have to put so much work into convincing people to sleep with you. Sad, really.”

“You know I don’t use it for sex, only feeding.” Keith insists, urgency bleeding into the words. It really shouldn’t matter what Lance thinks of him, he doesn’t think much of anything at all about Lance, but something about this feels important. He needs Lance to understand that he’s better than that, that he isn’t a monster like some of the other vampires pride themselves in being.

He’s different. Trying to be, anyway.

“Whatever.”

Keith tries to pretend the blatant dismissal doesn’t sting. Changes the topic back around to Lance.

“Besides, my mind compulsion doesn’t work on other supernatural beings, Lance. I’ve done the opposite of trying to persuade you this entire time, I’ve tried to deter you every step of the way.” Keith says, stepping around to stand in front of Lance, hands on his hips. Lance leans forward, subconsciously closing the space between them. “Yet here you are, still lusting after me so obviously I’m surprised you haven’t stooped to humping my leg in the middle of the campus.” 

“I can want you and still acknowledge how predatory the majority of vampires in covens are.” Lance argues, quick to take the bait as always. Keith smirks down at him. He feels powerful like this, Lance between his legs, looking up the line of his body. “The same way you could fuck me and still keep up your holier-than-thou attitude toward werewolves.”

And there Lance had to go again, bringing up the whole sex thing. Or, more specifically, them having sex. Together. In a not entirely theoretical way.

Keith rolls his eyes. 

In the beginning, when Lance had first noticed him as something different, something other… Keith thought for sure the look in his eyes was hatred. Keith had been so careful never to hunt near the campus, not even once, desperately trying to hold onto the one shred of normalcy he had left in his life after being turned into a member of the undead. And Lance had sniffed him out like a bloodhound, the bastard, thrown the word “vampire” in his face like Keith had any idea what that even meant yet.

Keith thought it was hatred for weeks, when Lance would show up next to him randomly around campus, with flirty one-liners and touches that lingered for just a second too long to be friendly. Keith thought it was making a mockery out of him, the mere idea that Lance would want to sleep with him supposedly the butt of the joke.

But… in the rare moments of weakness where Keith crumpled under the attention, fed into Lance’s witty banter and played back like this… Lance never pulled the rug out from under him. He never jumped out, ready to throw it back in his face, laughing at him for even trying to play along. Lance was just calmly waiting on the tension between them to come to a head, for their walls to shatter so they could meet somewhere in the middle.

Keith had accepted by now that Lance’s flirting was at least somewhat rooted in genuine feelings.

Whether Lance was aware of that or not, Keith was unsure.

“You’re so annoying.”

“Don’t think I don’t notice the way you change the subject every time.” Lance counters, but his voice is surprisingly gentle. There’s no pressure there. “You’ve never really said no to me, have you? I think you’re just too proud to admit you want me too.”

“I think I’ve made my stance on the subject pretty clear.”

“Sorry, the line’s still a little blurry for me. Wanna clarify?” Lance is starting to smile now, dimpled and earnest, not at all played up to annoy the piss out of Keith. It’s just… genuine. Lance is smiling at spending time with Keith, like there’s no place he’d rather be right now. 

Keith can’t wrap his head around when their rivalry became one-sided, if it had ever been the rivalry he’d interpreted it to be in the first place. Maybe Lance is just that bold in all of his emotions, whether he feels strongly negative or positive feelings toward someone. Maybe Keith just isn’t used to someone caring about him so much one way or the other, and had only assumed the worst.

“Clarify what?” Keith spits out, turning around so he doesn’t have to look at Lance’s stupid face.

“Just say you would never sleep with me in a million years… which is a serious commitment because your pasty ass will probably live that long. Give me a hard no and I’ll leave you alone, I’m not an  _ animal _ .”

And yeah, okay. Maybe it really has been that simple all along. Maybe if Keith had really and truly wanted Lance to back off and never speak to him again, all he had to do was say as much. 

So, why aren’t the words coming to him now? Presented with the easiest opportunity he could get?

Lance just keeps on smiling, lips stretching wider and wider, something taunting about the expression.

“Why are you here at 11pm on a Wednesday night, Lance?” Keith hopes his expert change in subject goes unnoticed by the other party. Lance doesn’t call him out, at least.

“You haven’t figured it out?”

“You’re mugging me?”

“Keith, it’s me, I'm your blind date.” Lance performs some half-assed jazz hands. Keith resists the urge to bash his head off the fountain. Only he could have luck quite so terrible. Lance, indifferent to Keith’s obvious turmoil, just continues chattering like always. He never shuts up. “I was supposed to be anyway, but then you suggested meeting at 11pm and now I’m feeling a little bit more like a booty call. I’m sure you have the purest of intentions, though.”

“No fucking way.” Keith groans out. Everything else aside, Keith really needs to feed soon, he can feel his control slipping and his fangs have been heavy in his mouth the entire time he’s been talking to Lance. It isn’t exactly comfortable. This blind date turning out to be a bust is just the icing on top of what was an already shitty cake. “Ugh, I need to find new friends, mine must secretly hate me.”

“Why? Because they set you up with the hottest guy on campus?” Lance scoffs, honest to god scoffs, then flexes his muscles at Keith. He’s a bonehead. No doubt about it. 

If anyone asked Keith to look back on this moment later, which he surely would be, he would admit that some of the influence of his next words had to do with the fact he was starving and had just had his only potential meal ripped away from him. He was a bloodthirsty being on the verge of a rampage, he was allowed to be cranky! Just… in hindsight… maybe he could have been less mean about it.

“No, because they set me up with possibly the biggest dumbass to ever get a university acceptance letter. It’s a wonder you’ve survived on your own this long. Are you even passing your classes? I’m pretty sure Hunk said he was tutoring you now, poor guy has his work cut out for him.” It’s snobby. Cruel, even. 

Lance recoils at his words, hurt flashing across his face, darkening his eyes.

“Do you have to be such a dick about it?” Lance is clearly trying to appear more angered than hurt, but all Keith can see is a cornered injured animal lashing out. Lance’s persona has dropped away, leaving a nervous twenty year old boy in the place left behind. And like this, Keith wonders how he ever finds him irritating at all. “It’s not _ my _ fault that everyone but you can see the chemistry between us!”

“There is no chemistry and there is no us.” Keith says, but the venom behind the words is gone. Already, he feels the start of regret crawling across his skin. He’s mentally kicking himself for ever thinking it was okay to say those things to Lance. Lance, who despite the self-confidence he oozes in buckets, is also a person with insecurities and a fear of failure like anyone else. 

He turns to leave, figuring he’s said more than enough tonight. Besides, he still needs to find a quick meal around somewhere and the bars are only open so late. Damn it. 

“Keep telling yourself that enough and maybe you’ll even believe it someday.” Lance calls after him, but he sounds far away, like he’s hardly even aware of the fact he’s speaking when the quip comes so naturally to him. His voice is rough and unapproachable, nothing like it usually is.

Keith turns around before he can stop himself, looking back to where Lance is sitting. He looks so dejected, curled up alone on the edge of the fountain, hood pulled back up to hide his face. He’s got a foot up on the fountain now and is resting his chin on his knee, staring dismally into the pooling blue water below. 

And you know, now that Keith is actually looking… Lance took the time to dress up nice too (in his own, douchey, frat boy way). He’s wearing a brand new sweatshirt and a pair of nice blue jeans, showing off his most expensive running shoes with the holographic stripes. His hair is doing that side-swooping thing where it falls in his eyes just the right amount, in a way that looks effortless but surely isn’t if Keith knows a thing about Lance. He’s meticulous. Probably agonized over this outfit for hours even though it looks like the same sort of stuff he wears every other day. 

He’s… trying. 

Keith made an effort because he thought he was being set-up with a stranger, and he wanted to eat.

Lance made an effort despite knowing he _ wasn’t  _ being set up with a stranger, so what did  _ he  _ want?

Maybe Hunk had no idea about the fact that Keith and Lance already knew each other and had a bit of a history, but Lance had to have known right from the start. He went along with it. He stood by and let Hunk set him up for a _ date _ with his rival, probably listened to Hunk go on and on about what a good fit they were going to be, just like Keith had. While Keith had done it with fond exasperation, just out to get a meal at any cost… Lance didn’t have any motives behind showing up here.

He knew what he was walking into and he did it anyway. 

And sure, it could be argued that he did it to mess with Keith and ruin his night, but aside from a few flirty lines and sexual innuendos… Lance hadn’t really done anything? Even the teasing was more friendly banter than it was making fun of Keith at his expense. It was irritating, gross, way too forward, and-

And it was exactly how Lance acted around every pretty person that ever walked moderately close to him. That was how Lance got when he was around someone he wanted to impress. He made an ass out of himself like a big, blundering, bisexual disaster. Keith had made fun of him for it so many times since they’d met and it’d never occurred to him once that Lance’s own annoying behavior around him might be coming from the same well-intentioned place.

Ah, fuck. Maybe Lance is more aware of those genuine feelings underneath his flirting than Keith ever could have guessed. Maybe he’s known longer than Keith has. Maybe it’s an actual, genuine crush. 

“You forget how to walk, dumbass?” Lance’s voice calls out to him and Keith realizes he’s been glued to the same spot on the path this entire time, his mind short-circuiting under the onslaught of new realizations. Keith blinks a few times, registers that he’s still staring right at Lance. Lance, who seems to have perked up slightly under the attention. 

He’s wearing that lopsided little smile, teasing and playful, the one that Keith just loves to hate...

Jesus Christ. How did Keith not realize any of this before?! They haven’t been fighting! They’ve been flirting! This entire time!

Oh no. Oh no, no, no. This can’t be happening. Abort mission. Get out of here fast before Keith combusts and Lance calls him out on it. Keith isn’t good with emotions, he isn’t looking for anything romantic, he’s only had one crush his entire life and Garret from grade school ended up being a bust when Keith found out he was a glue guzzler.

He’s not doing this again. Not with Lance. He’s not attracted to that brand of dumbass, he can’t be.

Keith turns stiffly on his heel and doesn’t address Lance whatsoever, starting back to his dorm with his head held high. He’s pretty good at pretending he isn’t in the midst of a total breakdown, at least when his back is turned. But then he hears Lance chuckle, very plainly amused by Keith’s odd behavior, like he knows something even Keith doesn’t… fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Night, Red!” Lance shouts after him, voice smooth like honey again, and everything is back to normal.

Except Keith is realizing that normal for them was never normal at all, and with that realization comes a whole lot of absolutely abnormal panic.

\--

Keith avoids Lance for two weeks after that. 

He’s not sure when he familiarized himself with Lance’s schedule so thoroughly, or why he never thought to just avoid him in the past when he was under the impression that they were rivals. If anything, Keith was always adjusting his schedule around Lance’s, just so they would end up running into each other.

\--

Keith watches a drunken Lance doing a keg stand.

This isn’t how he expected his night to go, but he can’t say he’s complaining, not necessarily. Lance is in his element, totally unaware of Keith’s heavy gaze glued to his every movement. There’s a crowd of people surrounding him, cheering him on, and Lance keeps chugging beer like it’s the nectar of the gods themselves. He’s dressed weirdly, different from when Keith usually sees him, with short cut-off jean shorts and a crop top made from shimmery sleek fabric that slides across his skin.

Keith watches as a stranger places his hand on Lance’s thigh to keep him steady, fingers gripping the meat of it so tightly it’ll leave a fading handprint behind when he lets go.

The corner he’s carved out for himself in the shadows of the house party is quite comfortable. He’s drinking a glass of red wine for irony purposes, and because his fangs have been out since the moment he first caught a whiff of Lance’s blood. The slosh of liquid soothes his gums, but it also makes him long for something more, something thicker, something warm, something with a scent so strong it’ll cross the wires in his brain and make him forget how to think until he’s swallowed it down his throat.

Keith watches as Lance stumbles back onto his feet, slurring his words, tilting and rocking as he attempts to steady himself. The stranger from before is there to support him again, this time with a heavy lingering hand on Lance’s hip. Fingertips pressed into the supple flesh of his stomach. Blunt nails marring Lance’s skin with the faintest, fleeting marks.

The marks will be gone within seconds. Keith has no idea why it makes his skin crawl, makes something possessive and damning churn in his gut. He wants to tear that fucking hand from the limb.

Keith gets to his feet. He can’t watch anymore.

\--

On second thought… Keith might be attracted to that particular brand of dumbass.

\--

He’s had a couple weeks to think on it, to debate the pros and cons.

A couple weeks to miss Lance’s presence in his life.

\--

Keith reintroduces himself into Lance’s schedule as flawlessly as he’d left it. He starts showing up to all the regular places (Lance’s regular places), lingers there in anticipation until the idiot in question comes running down the path or busting through the coffee shop door like he owns the place. 

The first couple times they see each other again, it wipes the smile from Lance’s face. Something unsure and nervous replaces it, as his eyes meet Keith’s from across the way. There’s a tension between them that was never there before and Keith immediately hates it. Lance isn’t as clueless as he’d have everyone believe, there was no way he didn’t notice Keith distancing himself.

So, Keith does the only thing he can possibly think of to bridge the gap and end their staring contests… he  _ smiles _ . Shy. Hopeful. Fanged, because when the hell isn’t he fanged if Lance is in close proximity?

Lance returns the smile three times before he finally takes it as the invitation it is and sits down at Keith’s table with his steaming mug of flavored garbage water. He slides into the seat across from Keith and goes right to messing with him. He makes fun of the way Keith’s hair is growing out, the scarf he’s wearing, even the clumsy sketch of a nameless man (Lance) that Keith had been sketching out in his notebook.

Keith basks in the attention. He tries to scowl instead of smile, like old times. But things have changed.

\--

For the week after that, everything seems to be going swimmingly. Now that they’re spending more time together, Keith gets rare glimpses into how Lance acts normally, around people that aren’t Keith. He lets his guard down sometimes, the flirting and teasing taking a backseat to actual, real conversation.

He talks about his family a lot, like enough that it would be getting boring by now if it were literally anyone else’s family. But Lance’s sounds so fun, so many different family members that he never runs out of stories to tell. Keith finds he loves hearing about them.

Usually when Lance brings them up it’s while they’re supposed to be studying together and Keith has his nose buried in a book, hasn’t been paying attention to Lance for a while. It’s almost like he only feels comfortable enough to be himself when he thinks Keith isn’t paying full attention. So Keith buys into the act, pretends he’s only half listening, keeps flicking through the pages of his book… but he’s not reading a word of it.

He’s invested in _ Lance _ , everything he says, everything he does.

\--

They’re hanging out after sunset at the coffee shop one night, sitting on opposite sides of the booth and reading their respective textbooks. Keith is actually studying tonight, much to Lance’s annoyance as he determinedly tries to distract him. Keith has an important test coming up though, and he can’t afford to mess around right now. Which begs the question of why he decided to come here and study with Lance rather than in the quiet comfort of his own room, but whatever. He’s here.

“ _ Keith _ .” Lance pleads again, the name rolling off his tongue with such familiarity that Keith has to stop and wonder when they reached this point. Lance’s sock-covered foot is at his calves, rubbing underneath the hem of his pant leg, demanding attention. Lance doesn’t push it, doesn’t dare go any further than that, but Keith isn’t sure when they got to the point that even that is acceptable.

Lance is like that though, he enjoys testing boundaries, pushing and pushing until they stretch around him. It’s something to do with being a wolf maybe, his need to always know exactly where his territory stretches. Keith doesn’t protest, but he also doesn’t show any sign of relenting. He’s reading this damned chapter, whether Lance likes it or not!

The attention-hungry menace on the other side of the table is just starting to settle back into his own reading material when a familiar chill runs down Keith’s spine. It’s eerie and unsettling, it never ceases to be, even after over six months of experiencing it. 

His maker is summoning him.

Keith is on his feet without a second of hesitation, shoving his textbook into his bag so carelessly he rips a page in the process. But that’s the least of his concerns right now. Everything is a secondary concern to the all-consuming need to go to his master. He hates it, of course, it’s the worst feeling in the world to give up control over your body to someone else without consent, but he can’t fight it.

It only hurts him the more he fights, like he’s tearing some crucial part of his soul apart. 

“Uh, buddy? You got somewhere important to be?” Lance asks, his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose, eyes wide and blue as they look up at Keith. Keith shrugs his bag over his shoulder, huffing to blow his hair out of his face. He bolts for the door.

“Can’t explain. Gotta go.” 

He makes it outside and three more steps, about ready to break into a vampire-speed sprint, when a hand clamps down on his own. Keith freezes, whipping around in Lance’s hold to glare at him. He bares his fangs before he can help it, a hiss seething out of his throat. Lance doesn’t even flinch.

“Actually, you _ can  _ explain.” Lance tells him, tugging Keith over to the nearby bench. He shoves Keith down to sit on it when the other boy continues to refuse to cooperate. He isn’t fighting Lance off, thrashing and angry about it… he just sits there. Shaking with need. Entire body poised and ready to fucking bolt the second he can. He can’t do anything if it isn’t obeying the order he’s been given, so he sits there uselessly. He has to grit his teeth around the pain he’s experiencing. 

Lance hovers next to him, more genuine than Keith has ever seen him be. Keith can hardly concentrate on anything but the ringing in his ears, but he tries to keep his gaze on Lance, rather than staring right through him. Lance who is pacing in front of him, panicking as worry eats him alive. He keeps looking down at Keith, trying to search his face for any giveaway to what’s happening.

“Keith? You’re freaking me out, dude.”

He  _ never _ wanted Lance to see him like this. 

“I have to go, I have to-” Keith cuts himself off with a wince, curling in on himself and digging his hands into his hair. He tugs at it, desperately to feel anything than the sensation of his own flesh turning against him, boiling under his skin. This isn’t right, none of this is right, he hates it so much-

“Where do you have to go?”

“To him.” Keith breathes, the words barely an exhale. “I have to go to him. Now.”

“ _ Him _ ?” Lance repeats, pausing his pacing to stare down at Keith. Keith is seeing double at this point, his whole world spinning, but he tries to nod his head just the same. Lance tilts his head to the side, an animal curiosity sparking in his eyes. “You gotta boyfriend or somethin’?”

“No, Lance, I don’t have a fucking-” Keith hisses again, jumping to his feet because he can’t bring himself to sit still a second longer. The sharp pain in his head lessens as he starts walking in the right direction, his head clearing enough to allow him to speak a full sentence. Lance is hot on his heels as always, trailing diligently after him. 

“Keith?”

“My maker. The man that turned me into a vampire. He’s summoning me. I have to go.”

“Can’t he wait? What if you were in the middle of something important?” Lance asks, his tone innocent, not the slightest bit expectant in nature. And still it rubs Keith the wrong way, has every part of him flaring up in anger at the thought of making his master wait any longer than he already has. He whirls around, hands landing on Lance’s shoulders and shoving as hard as he can.

Lance goes flying a solid few feet, hitting the ground with a thud.

“That’s not how it works, Lance! Idiot!” Keith shouts at him, eyes no doubt darkening into that same blood-red as when he feeds. He stumbles backward immediately, realizing the mistake he’s made only now that he’s too late. Lance is looking up at him with wide, concerned eyes. 

Keith can’t fucking handle it anymore. He crumples, falling to his knees in the middle of the campus grass. People are walking by, but he can’t pay attention to them. It’s all he can think about, all he is, reduced to the primal need to appease his master.

He’s a puppet. 

“I’m sorry. Fuck! I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I’m-” Keith cuts himself off with a hiccup when he feels Lance settle beside him, muscular arms wrapping around Keith’s trembling form and simply holding him as he shakes. It triggers the need to escape again, the last thing Keith wants is to be confined when he needs to leave, when he needs to go  _ home _ … but he grits his teeth and bears it.

Because Keith, the real Keith underneath all the compulsion and brainwashing that’s been done to him, doesn’t mind being held by Lance at all. 

“Hey, it’s okay.” Lance hugs him closer, hands coming up to his face. Keith didn’t realize he’d been crying until Lance’s hand comes away glistening with tears. Keith whimpers uselessly. “Does he do this a lot?”

“Whenever he wants something. Sometimes it’s every night of the week, sometimes he lets me go a few weeks. But it always comes back. He always wants something again.” 

“What… kinda stuff does he want?”

“Errands. Favors. Labour.” 

“This is so fucked up. Vampire politics are _ so  _ fucked. How can you  _ not _ see how fucked up this is?!”

“Of course I see it, what good does it do me to see it?” Keith mutters in response, scowling so deeply his fangs threaten to pierce his bottom lip. He backs up, blinking the tears out of his eyes to look at Lance properly. Lance has never looked so… defeated. He’s the happy-go-lucky optimist type, he bounces back as quickly as you can shove him down, he’s the human equivalent of being a giant puppy! He doesn’t look like this. He isn’t supposed to.

Keith averts his eyes. Ashamed that he put that broken look on Lance’s pretty features.

“I don’t have a choice, Lance. I am what I am.”

“You should always have a choice.” Lance breathes into Keith’s hair, sounding deeply troubled. Keith supposes it is pretty fucked up, if he lets himself think about it. He tries not to. “How come you never told me about this before?”

“You think this is the sort-of thing I want lorded over my head? That I’m some man’s bitch? That I don’t even own my own body anymore?”

“Seriously, Keith? You think that lowly of me? I would never make fun of you for this. None of this is your fault, not a fucking bit of it. You hear me? You don’t deserve this.”

“I-”

“Don’t try to argue with me. Not about this.” Lance cuts him off, his tone final. “I mean it, Keith.”

Keith turns to bury his face into the curve of Lance’s neck impulsively. Lance stiffens against him, entire body going rigid. Keith realizes then that maybe it’s an undesirable thing, to have a vampire nuzzling into your pulse point, but Keith can’t bring himself to back off now that he’s here. He’s careful to keep his fangs firmly pressed behind his lips, no matter how they ache to plunge into the warm inviting skin in front of his nose.

It’s almost as all-consuming as the call of his maker, the heady scent of Lance’s rushing blood. 

He shouldn’t even be hungry yet, he fed just the night before. 

Keith isn’t sure what’s worse, addressing the fact that Lance’s blood has as much power over him as the man that gave him his second life, or the agonizing knowledge that he’ll never be able to  _ taste _ it. This is the closest he’ll ever get, inhaling the scent of it, feeling the way it pulses under his lips. It’s sweet, sweet, torture.

Lance’s hand comes up abruptly to settle on the back of Keith’s head, fingers working deftly to untangle all the knots Keith had left there before. Keith shivers helplessly under the touch, pressing his nose into Lance’s neck harder, inhaling deeper, desperation plaguing his every movement.

Lance soothes him with a gentle hum, like Keith is the one in danger right now, like Keith is the one in need of comforting. It’s a sort of sick irony that Keith is actually sitting there lusting over the idea of drinking him dry. Keith can’t bring himself to stay like that any longer, the guilt is too much to bear.

He’d never actually hurt Lance… he would drink sparingly, cherish every drop, lick his lips and say thank-you afterward. Fuck. He wants it so badly he’s shaking from desire rather than pain now.

Experimentally, he lets the very tips of his fangs trace over Lance’s skin. He feels it when Lance’s breath stutters in response, hears his heart rate pick up, tastes the anxiety in his sweat. Fuck.

He needs to put space between them right now. He’s never lost control like this before, no matter how hungry he’s gotten, he’s always been able to hold onto his humanity. This is something animal, beyond him. He feels like he’ll _ die _ if he doesn’t get to taste.

Keith backs away from Lance clumsily, scrambling backward and putting a few feet of space between them just to be safe. Keith realizes belatedly that he’s hard, leaking so much pre-cum that he’s definitely leaving a wet stain in his boxers, and he can only pray Lance didn’t notice while he was settled in his lap like he owned it.

But, if Lance noticed, he’s surprisingly cool about it. He just offers Keith a small smile. His eyes flash with determination now, rather than the defeat from before. There’s something dangerous about it, reckless.

“I’m gonna find a way to help you get out of this. I swear it. I-I’ll protect you from him.”

It’s stupid. It’s so incredibly stupid because again, it doesn’t work like that. There is no getting Keith out of this, there is no protecting him from his own maker. This is the future he has to look forward to for eternity, or until his master is slain. Which, as much as Keith knows werewolves can be powerful, he highly doubts Lance has that kind of skill as a hunter. His maker is over a thousand years old and nothing’s killed him yet, so nothing will in Keith’s meager lifetime, let alone Lance’s.

It’s stupid. But… it puts a smile on Keith’s weary face. Gives him a shred of hope no matter how desperately he tries to pretend it doesn’t. He wants to believe Lance. He wants to believe him more than anything. He would give up immortality in a heartbeat to be able to stay here and choose the soft lure of Lance’s blood over the cold-hearted evil man he calls his master.

But he can’t. Because even if it’s a reasonable substitute and takes the pain away for as long as he’s got his nose pressed to Lance’s neck, it’s not sustainable. He can’t stay glued to Lance’s side forever, no more than he can take the risk of his master getting angry and taking it out on the other boy. 

“I have to leave.” Keith tells him, plainly. Lance doesn’t protest this time, he just gives an understanding nod and helps them both to their feet. The pull is coming over Keith again, the pain setting in with every inch he strays from Lance, so he figures he should get a move on fast before it becomes unbearable again.

“I’ll see you again tomorrow?” Lance asks, just as Keith turns to take off. Keith looks back with an affirmative answer on the tip of his tongue, but finds himself hesitating. It’s only there for a split second and then Lance wipes his face clean, a wide smile replacing it. Keith saw it, though.

Lance is so _ terrified _ for him.

It is sort-of terrifying, Keith supposes, he never really allowed himself the grieving period to mourn his life. His master turned him one night while he was walking home after class, spent the next week teaching Keith the ropes and caring for his changing and unfamiliar body, and then that was that. Keith was indebted to him for something he’d never even asked for.

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”

\--

Keith nods toward both of the guards, quickly letting his eyes slide back down to the floor. 

He hangs his head low as he pushes open the massive set of dark wood doors, complete with ornate carvings, just broadcasting the fact that everything in this mansion is worth more than Keith’s life. He’s never felt as insignificant as he does when he comes here to see his master. He’s the bottom of the food chain as far as vampires go, and everyone else in the coven make sure he knows it the moment he steps foot in the house.

He shrugs off his coat for the butler to hang up for him, muttering a quick thanks. There’s a guide waiting on him especially, standing by with a blank expression, emotionless. The entire mansion is filled with his master’s offspring, vampires leaning against every surface, chatting idly together, drinking from communal humans. And yet, his maker insists on using mind compulsion on poor unfortunate humans to do jobs like this one.

Keith fights off a scowl as he follows behind the human, down the long winding hallway and to another set of intimidating doors that loom ahead. Keith invites himself in, his footsteps echoing in the massive open room. Aside from a few bookcases and the comfortable armchair resting in front of the fireplace, the room is empty. Keith walks toward the chair steadily, studying the silhouette of the man sitting there, trying to gauge his master’s mood even before the conversation starts.

“Keith.” The man says, long before Keith is anywhere near him. He doesn’t look up from the flickering light of the fire, but he doesn’t need to to know that Keith is listening. “Lovely to see you again. You’ve missed the last few coven meetings.”

“I’ve been busy with school. You said they weren’t mandatory, so I thought it would be alright?”

“Oh, it’s fine.” From this angle, Keith can just barely make out when his maker’s lips curl up at the corner, a cruel mockery of a smile. It doesn’t lighten the atmosphere between them at all. Keith hasn’t done anything wrong really, but he can’t help but feel like this meeting is personally charged. Where are all the other fledglings that are usually summoned at the same time as him? This is weird. 

“Am I… in trouble?” Keith ventures, even though he really does _ not  _ want to know the answer.

“Keith, do you know what next weekend is?” The question is seemingly a harmless one, if Keith listens closely he can even hear a hint of amusement behind it. But it’s warped, wrong, it’s not a joke that he’s a part of. He knows now that he’s in trouble, though his master would never come out and say it, he’s not direct like that. He works with backhanded compliments, passive aggression and then kindness to contrast, so back and forth that it leaves you doubting yourself for anything and everything you feel in response. He’s an expert manipulator, hundreds of years of it under his belt. 

And Keith is just a dumb kid, damn it. 

“No. I don’t know.”

“Of course you don’t.” The man tilts his head back, picks up a cigar out of the box and toys with it between his fingers. He doesn’t even light it yet, almost like he’s waiting for Keith to leave the room, like he doesn’t even deserve to inhale the secondhand smoke. “Why, Keith, it’s the full moon.”

“Y-Yeah?” A sinking feeling of dread settles in Keith’s gut, heavy as lead.

“Yes.” He answers, firm. “Do you know what we tend to do near the full moon?”

“Stick closer together. Avoid trouble.” Keith gives the vaguest answer imaginable, but dodging the question isn’t an option. His master tilts his head back, dark eyes like pools of ink staring up at Keith. The man doesn’t necessarily look displeased, but there’s something about the prolonged eye contact that has Keith crumpling like a house of cards. “We look out for werewolves.”

“Correct!” The man beams a smile, reaching up to grip Keith’s chin with nails as sharp as knives, just barely bordering on applying too much pressure. “But you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? You’ve been keeping a  _ very _ close eye on a werewolf for a while now.”

“What’s this about?” Keith wants so badly to believe they aren’t talking about the same blue-eyed, bright smiled, bushy-tailed werewolf he’s thinking of.

“I think you know.” His master tells him with a wink. Keith nods his head slowly, because he does know, he just doesn’t want to admit it to himself that Lance has been under this killer’s microscope. “I thought I was pretty precise with my warnings when I turned you. There aren’t many things vampires can’t do, we’re all-powerful beings, the superior race. We own this planet. But… the werewolves like to think they’re on the same level as us. And we can’t have that, can we?”

“No, we can’t.” Keith blinks rapidly, trying so hard not to break in front of the monster in front of him. He doesn’t dare. Expressing a shred of weakness in front of someone so heartless is akin to bleeding in a pool of piranhas. He can never know how close to home this hits, how powerful of a pawn Lance is in the game of controlling Keith. 

“I want you to stay away from him.” The order is given clearly. Keith nods. “He’s more dangerous than he looks, Keith. And if he isn’t, then the pack he has behind him certainly is. I don’t want trouble with the werewolves. I don’t want a war. The bloodshed would be satisfying, but ultimately our ranks would take a hit. It’s not worth losing my beautiful offspring, yes?”

“I understand.”

“I have eyes across this whole town, Keith.” His master’s grip on his chin tightens, piercing flesh. Keith winces, but he doesn’t try to pull away, knows it would only result in a harsher punishment for his disobedience. When the master wants something from you, you deliver, even if that something is to watch you suffer. Keith has no choice but to take it. “You’d be wise not to lie to me.”

“Yes, Master.”

\--

He avoids Lance like the plague for two days. 

Even at the cost of skipping a few of his classes when he knows there’s a possibility of running into Lance on route to them.

He spends every second of his free time holed up in his room, brooding, drowning in self-loathing because of what he is.

He could  _ never  _ have Lance. He was selfish to think for even a second he was deserving of him.

\--

On the third day, Keith notices a shift in the air on his walk home from his late night classes. 

The full moon is only eight days away now, he’s been counting down, suddenly more aware of it than he’s ever been before. Lance is definitely feeling its pull by now, is probably feeling restless and unlike himself, is doing things he normally wouldn’t do. Up until now, Keith had never noticed it, but Lance generally kept his distance as it was during the week of the full moon. Maybe he couldn’t stand to be around a vampire when his instincts were screaming at him to fight, to posture against the enemy.

Anyway, Keith is avoiding Lance, Lance is more than likely avoiding Keith… it’s fine. Lance probably hasn’t even realized what Keith is doing yet. It’s fine.

But this walk home has Keith feeling on edge and jumpy the entire time, though he can’t put his finger on why until he’s turning the lock in the door. A shiver runs up his spine and he freezes, spinning around in an instant to look behind himself. There’s no movement, no eyes blinking back at him in the darkness, not a single noise.

But Keith knows what he felt, his senses are heightened to an almost unbearable amount. 

He was being watched.

\--

The full moon is five days away and Keith can’t take it anymore! He can’t fucking play along for another second, no matter how desperately he wants to obey his master’s orders and keep Lance safe.

With every passing day, the feeling of being watched has only grown significantly stronger, like whoever has their eyes on him is getting shameless with it. They’re stealthy, so quiet that even Keith’s hearing can only catch the very rare crunch of snow or snap of a twig. But it’s just the sensation, the ringing alarms in Keith’s body, he knows what he feels.

He knows that someone has been following him. At this point it’s any time he’s out after dark, it’s come to be a familiar presence more than anything else. It doesn’t spook him as much as it had the first night, if anything it’s starting to feel comfortable. Like he’s a sheep under the careful watch of a shepherd, attentive and caring. And that’s exactly why he has to address it before he lets it go any further than this.

That night, as he’s unlocking his door, he feels the telltale sensation of eyes drinking him in.

He turns around, casual, showing he’s not afraid.

“I can hear you, you’re not subtle.” Keith says gruffly, addressing the whole of the courtyard (because in truth he has no idea where his pursuer actually is). A few long seconds pass without a reaction, long enough that Keith is starting to doubt himself, wonder if it was actually one of his master’s cronies stalking him to make sure he’s following orders. 

But then, the bushes to his left rustle and a shadow emerges. Lance doesn’t even look the slightest bit bashful for what he’s done. He’s wearing a sly little grin, hands shoved deep into his pockets. He leans against the nearby tree, rolling his shoulders to get comfortable. Keith tries to keep the scowl on his face as his eyes follow the lean line of Lance’s body. 

“So I’ve been told.” Lance grins, eyeing Keith just as openly as he had been with cover to hide behind. It’s immediately obvious that Lance is being affected by the moon overhead, at least to an extent. His eyes seem to glint in the dark like an animal’s, his body language confident and proud, his gaze so plainly hungry that it should be a crime.

“What are you doing here, Lance?” Keith sighs. 

“I’m just walking you back to your dorm, making sure you get inside safe.” Lance pushes off from the tree, sauntering over to the entryway. He braces a hand on the brick over Keith’s head, leaning into his space like its his to claim. Keith takes a nervous step backward. He can’t help it, the energy radiating off of Lance right now _ is _ intimidating. He’s never been close to a werewolf near the full moon before, never fully understood when the others in his coven talked about how dangerous they could be. 

Lance looks distinctly predator, which is such a jarring shift from his usual persona that it has Keith entirely off kilter. Their usual dynamic is still there, but it’s twisted the slightest bit. Keith doesn’t have the upper hand, Lance isn’t fawning over him and bending over hand and foot to accommodate  _ Keith’s  _ comfort,  _ Keith’s _ desires, _ Keith’s  _ boundaries. This Lance is not the type to back down, none of his usual sweetness present in his expression.

“Stalking.” Keith deadpans. “You’re stalking me.”

“Aw, come on, Red.” Lance chuckles, his voice so low it almost sounds like a growl. He takes a step closer, crowding Keith into the corner of the alcove. “Don’t be like that.”

And as much as Keith would be all too happy to just let the conversation take its natural course from there, his master’s words ring heavy in his ears, reminding him that even by doing this much he’s disobeying. And it would be so easy to disobey from where he’s standing, the scent of Lance’s blood so thick and heavy from here that Keith’s left gnawing on his own bottom lip to sate the craving to  _ take _ .

But he cares about Lance, damn it, and he won’t risk being seen with him if it puts him in danger.

He places a hand in the center of Lance’s chest, shoving him backward with all his might. While normally this would sent Lance flying like a bag of feathers, he barely even stumbles backward. He does start to smile though, teasing and amused, which is definitely an improvement from the tight-lined hard expression from before because at least it’s familiar.

“What do you  _ want _ , Lance?”

“Nothing.” Lance looks down at his feet, a glimpse of his usual hesitance. He seems to be at war with himself, trying to tame the wolf fighting for control. “I don’t know. I’m worried about you. You’ve been acting weird ever since that slimeball called you in for a staff meeting. Did he do something to you?”

Oh no.  _ There _ is that missing sweetness. It comes back all at once, like a tidal wave of affection and protectiveness so fierce Keith’s knees nearly buckle under it. Lance is looking at him from under that too-perfect swoop of his hair with these big, blue, pleading eyes. He’s desperate for Keith to trust him enough to let him in. It’s heart-wrenching knowing that he can’t.

“I don’t need a werewolf to fight my battles for me, Lance.” Keith snaps, tight and clipped, not at all willing to continue the conversation. He hates that he has to lie to Lance, that he can’t even attempt to explain his actions and why he’s choosing to spit on all the meticulous progress they had only just started making. 

But worse than lying, is that he has to be _ cruel _ to get his point across. Lance is persistent in all areas of life, but especially so in pursuing Keith, he’s withstood some downright awful treatment before Keith got his act together and started to realize what he wanted. But Keith needs to White Fang him here, needs to throw rocks and shout, make it so adamantly clear that he doesn’t want Lance that it gets through even that thick, loyal skull of his. “If I wanted a  _ pet _ , I’d go to the rescue and adopt one. Run along now, find someone who wants you.”

He waits. Waits for the words to register and for hurt to flash across Lance’s face, for his insecurities and self-doubt to flash up and have him backing off so quickly it’ll give them both whiplash. There had been a few times in the beginning when Keith was trying to play into the banter and said something that hit a little too close to home, had watched Lance scamper off to nurse his wounds and been left feeling more confused than anything else. Lance had always seemed like such an impenetrable wall of confidence, it baffled him to realize that he actually had a sensitive side underneath it.

Now, it baffles him to watch as Lance tips his head back and laughs it off, like water off a duck’s back. It has absolutely no effect on him, doesn’t even make him flinch. He straightens back up and stares down at Keith then, eyes gazing right into his soul. It’s like he can tell Keith is floundering, grasping at straws, not meaning a word of what he’s saying.

Lance steps closer, once again leaning over Keith with a salacious grin.

“Oh, but Keith, there are some  _ awfully _ unsavory types out tonight.” Lance purrs, honest to god purrs, the sound a rumble in his chest. Keith can feel himself heating up in a blush, leans backward and plasters himself to the brick wall at his back. Lance is so incredibly close, all he can smell is the cinnamon sweet musk of blood. His mouth is watering, fangs heavy.

Lance leans in closer still, hot breath ghosting over the shell of Keith’s ear. “Week of the full moon. The crazies are out and about. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, kitten.”

And well, if Keith’s old tricks to get Lance to fuck off aren’t working, he’s just gonna have to beat Lance at his own game. He can work with this. He can roll with the punches.

“Huh. I forgot that was this weekend.” Keith grunts, hand curling around Lance’s shirt and yanking him in hard. Lance stumbles, losing footing, ends up with their bodies pressed flush together. Lance stills in an instant, no doubt feeling Keith’s hard-on pressed to his thigh. “Must be driving you mad, poor thing. I bet you’re struggling  _ so hard _ to control yourself. Somehow I doubt your intentions in watching me were strictly chivalry, you  _ dog _ . Bet you’ve been watching me through my window too, haven’t you? Are you sure you’ve got a handle on yourself? Should I reach out to your pack alpha and express my concerns?”

“I’ve got it under control, thanks.” But Lance’s voice is cinched with annoyance as he speaks through his teeth. Keith can tell he’s hit a nerve. So, what does he do? What any warm-blooded boy pulling on the pigtails of their not-a-crush would do: he keeps hitting it.

“ _ Really _ ? Can you feel it yet? Crawling under your skin? Begging to break loose? To take what it  _ wants _ ?”

“ _ Keith _ .” 

“Is the big bad wolf stalking his prey? Gonna pounce when I least expect it?” 

“You’re playing a dangerous game, you know.”

“That’s what makes it fun.” Keith whispers provocatively, standing on the tips of his toes to brush his lips over Lance’s throat. He can hear the steady rush of blood, the racing heartbeat. Then, fangs pressed tight to Lance’s skin, he smirks. He gives the tiniest little nudge of his hips forward, thrusting against Lance’s thigh, making sure he feels every bit of how hard Keith is right now.

“Fuck!” Lance shouts as he rips himself away from Keith like it physically pains him, slamming his hand against the brick as he goes. Keith gulps, swallowing hard as he watches the brick crumble around the handprint left there. Lance stomps down the steps, throwing his hands up in the air, muttering angrily under his breath. Lance is  _ pissed _ . “You’re such a fucking tease, Kogane!”

“Y-Yeah?”

“Yes!” Lance spins around to face him, eyes glowing yellow. Keith presses himself back against the door harder, feeling genuine fear for his well-being. Of course he’d known he was stupid to play with fire, but he’d always been partial to the burn that followed, and Lance was going supernova in front of him. “I am trying to do this the right way! I’m trying to be all dashing and charming! I’m trying to make you fall in love with me fair and square! But you make it so fucking difficult! Sometimes, when you act like such a brat, it’s all I can do to hold myself back. I just wanna fucking slam you against the nearest surface and fuck that smug little bitch grin off your face. I know you want it too, bastard. So, what?! What is your problem with me?!” 

Keith had been under the impression it was a rhetorical question, but those yellow unblinking eyes are on him again. If before he’d been a sheep under the careful watch of a shepherd, now he’s a helpless lamb staring down the muzzle of a wolf. He’s in over his head, he’s being sized up, he’s strayed too far from the safety of the boundaries he’d once laid. This is the price he pays. 

“You’re a werewolf!”

“Yeah, and? You’re a fucking pasty blood-drinking leech, do you see me letting that get in the way of true love? No! I’m open-minded like that!” Lance shouts back at him, seething rage spilling over. He starts toward the steps of the dorm again, making it up one before Keith is there with a hand on his shoulder, holding him back.

“Let me make myself very fucking clear.” Keith states, leaning over the few steps between them. Lance looks up at him through his lashes, scowling so heavily it almost has Keith stuttering. He can’t afford to make a single slip-up right now, though. Not if he wants Lance to listen to him.

“ _ What _ ?”

“ _ If _ and when I want you, I’ll ask. I’ll call your name and expect you to come running with your tail wagging behind you. Like a dog to a bone.” Keith gently grips Lance’s jaw and turns it upward. He moves in close, exhaling a breath against Lance’s lips, watches as blue eyes fluttered obediently closed. Keith smirks, then whispers into the inch of space between their mouths, tone sultry. “Awrf. Awrf.”

“Fuck you.”

“Maybe.” Keith muses aloud, dropping Lance’s chin abruptly and spinning on his heel. He opens the door to the dorms, steps inside the warmth of the lobby. He looks back over his shoulder in the open door, hair falling in his eyes. “Until that happens? Leave me alone. I don’t want to be seen with you. My coven will get the wrong idea.”

“Keith.” Lance is growling again, a noise that should probably send Keith’s self-preservation instincts into the highest gear, but instead it has him resisting the urge to reach down and get a hand around himself. 

“Yes?”

“Just one night. I can show you what you're missing out on and prove it all wrong. You can even call it a hate fuck if you need to.” Lance reasons, hands curled into fists so tight they’re trembling at his sides. It’s kind of hot, seeing how desperately Lance is clinging to his fraying self-control. Keith doesn’t realize he’s smiling until it’s too late, and by then there’s a giggle bubbling up out of his throat.

“Pull yourself together, Fido, you’re drooling on my welcome mat.” 

He slams the door shut in Lance’s face just in time to watch the boy collide with the glass.

\--

Keith gets himself off as soon as he’s back in his room, he doesn’t even care that his roommate is lying in the bed across from him. He can’t help it, he has to bite down onto his pillow so hard his fangs tear into the fabric and send polyfill flying. Anything to hold back the needy noises threatening to spill, anything to swallow down the name that’s haunting his thoughts and resting on the tip of his tongue.

He fists his cock so hard that it almost hurts, using every ounce of his added vampire speed to aid the process. He figures Lance would fuck him just like this anyway, would take him without mercy and without regard for whether he could handle it. At least right now, with the full moon spurring him on through it. He’s leaking over his knuckles, cock twitching in his hand, balls drawing up tight.

He hopes that Lance really is waiting outside and vying for a glimpse at him through the window. 

He hopes Lance can hear him when he moans his completion, the cry of Lance’s name so loud that even the pillow doesn’t really muffle it. Keith doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about anything. He’s drunk on the smell of Lance’s blood still clinging inside of his nostrils.

\--

Keith woke up the next morning to James’ hand on his shoulder, jostling him out of his fitless sleep. An immediate horror sets in, fully prepared to receive a lecture on how loud he’d been before. Keith isn’t sure he can handle that level of awkward so soon after waking up, but maybe he shouldn’t have fucked his fist so hard he screamed the night before if he wanted to avoid this.

But, aside from the notable pink flush to James’ cheeks, he doesn’t show any signs of acknowledging it.

As it turns out, he’s just waking Keith up because someone left something outside their door for him.

A present.

It’s the stupidest arrangement Keith has ever laid his eyes on, so of course it’s from Lance. He doesn’t even have to read the card to know. Who else would wake up at the ass crack of dawn and have an edible arrangement of fruit delivered? Nevermind that he’s a vampire who can’t really eat it and it’ll only end up going rotten. It’d be a dumb gift even if he wasn’t.

Lance is… so dumb.

The card itself is even dumber. It’s a generic apology card with a picture of a flat-faced ugly bulldog on the front, with big glued-on googly eyes that shake around as Keith attempts to read the messily scrawled hand-writing inside;

“Sorry about last night. Moon makes me crazy right now. I’ll stop following you around, I know it was creepy. Just worried bout u. If you wanna see me again over the next couple days, maybe try to make sure it happens before sunset? Idk, I’d love to see you again. Only if you want to. I miss seeing your ugly mug at the coffee shop. Sorry again. Loyally yours, Fido.”

Keith stares at the card with a stupid grin on his face for so long that the words lose meaning, but he keeps reading it over and over again. He falls back in bed afterward, eyes falling on the dumbass fruit on his bedside table. Part of him debates offering some to James, considering he can actually enjoy it, but in the end he decides not to. It’s his gift and his alone. He’ll admire it until it rots and falls apart.

Plus, James is being really annoying. He keeps giving Keith these not-at-all subtle glances, utter confusion and concern behind them. He’s looking at Keith like he’s grown a second head, like he doesn’t at all resemble the roommate he’s lived with since this school year started.

So what if he’s maybe never seen Keith smile before? There’s a first for everything.

\--

Later that day (four days until the full moon) and Keith has his next encounter with Lance. 

He’s definitely not seeking him out on purpose, he’s still giving the usual meet-up spots a wide berth, trying his damndest to obey the order he’d been given. He’s just spending a little bit more time out of his room. Not for Lance’s sake! But because he’s been neglecting his classes and his studies, so what better place to catch up than the very public library?

If  _ someone  _ were to _ also  _ need to study for an exam for a class that they  _ might  _ share… it’s coincidence. 

Lance isn’t there. Not that Keith went out of his way to check every sitting area for him or anything, it’s just an astute observation he couldn’t help but make. 

With the obvious distraction out of the way, Keith settles down at one of the tables in the back corner and digs out his books. He isn’t looking forward to actually doing work, but he supposes that is what he claimed to have come here for. He opens up his text book and prepares to take a whole lot of notes.

He scribbles out one whole sentence before a ghost of a whisper between the shelves catches his attention. He’d been actively trying not to listen in on anyone, but his heightened sense of hearing makes it difficult to truly block out everything. And this sounds like it’s pretty close by, maybe in one of the last couple rows between Keith’s table and the back of the library. 

“Come on, baby, we don’t have much time.”

“Lance, do you seriously carry condoms and lube around with you  _ everywhere _ ?”

“Only when I know I’m gonna be with you, sweetcheeks.”

“Ugh.”

“Come on, pull those yoga pants down, ‘fore I try and fuck you through them.”

Keith sits unmoving, unseeing, not even daring to draw a breath.

“Alright, alright. _ Someone’s  _ horny today.” The woman laughs, but it’s playful. They’re clearly friends, have definitely hooked up before if they easy nature of the conversation is anything to go by. And that does something to Keith, knowing that Lance really does have people at the ready, a list of potential bodies to get off with when he needs them. Keith knew he was far from a virgin, but shit.

_ Here _ ? In the public school library?  _ Midday _ ?

“That’s it, wrap your legs around me, you’ve got it.” Lance praises, that honey-smooth voice directed toward someone else for a change. Keith immediately finds that he hates it. He digs his nails into the table in front of him, threatening to break off handfuls in his grip. That could be him, crowded into a dusty dim-lit corner of the library, Lance’s hands all over him.

It’s like that night at the party, watching another man touch Lance like he had any claim over him, like he truly knew him beyond the amount of beer he could chug in one sitting. Except it’s so much worse because this girl apparently isn’t a stranger, apparently has had a bigger role in Lance’s life than Keith probably has. And the worst part is knowing that he could have had more, if only he hadn’t spent so long dancing around his own desires.

Keith listens to the quiet tearing of a package, the snap of lubed-up latex as Lance makes quick work of rolling it onto his cock. Like this, if Keith closes his eyes and concentrates really closely on every pant and muttered curse coming from Lance’s lips… he can forget about the third party altogether. 

And oh, isn’t that a terribly cruel and addicting thought. Keith imagines himself pressed up against a bookshelf, his muscular thighs wrapped around Lance’s waist and holding himself upright. Lance’s hands on his hips, tight and unforgiving, digging his claws in no matter how he tries to help himself. Every touch, every word, every rough thrust inside all driven by animalistic  _ need _ .

For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Keith is pretty sure he’s staining through another pair of boxers. He’s so hard it hurts. 

He doesn’t miss the punched-out little groan that slips past Lance’s lips when he slides home inside of her, even if it’s much quieter than her pleasured gasp. Almost immediately, they pick up a steady rhythm, a filthy pace that’ll have them finishing in no time at all. Keith supposes that’s the point, public space and all, but he can’t help but feel a little bit cheated.

“Ah, fuck! Lance, s-slow down, someone’s gonna hear us.”

Someone is definitely hearing them, she isn't wrong.

Keith is hearing every fucking detail of the way their bodies are slotting together. Slick, slick noises fill his ears over and over again, every time Lance thrusts his cock back inside of her. He can even hear the filthy slap of skin against skin, can imagine how hard Lance must be fucking her to make it. 

“Fuck.” Lance practically slurs the word, drunk on the feeling of his cock sliding inside of a warm, willing body. He’s never sounded sexier, even Keith can  _ hear _ the power behind his voice. Makes him want to bow, get down on his knees and  _ serve _ . “Feels so fucking good, baby. You’re so wet, it’s dripping down your thighs. All for me? All because you love feeling my cock stretch your cunt out?”

“O-Oh, Lance! Keep doing that! Don’t stop, don’t stop! I’m coming, oh fuck, I’m-” And of course she sounds like she’s having a religious experience, like she’s already barely staving off an orgasm. Her voice is going all breathy and high, tiny broken moans wrenched out of her without her approval, whimpers of embarrassment at how into it she’s getting. The thing is, if Keith was into women it’d be pretty hot, objectively. 

Instead, it just has him seething with jealousy so strong he snaps a pencil in his hand.

It goes on for a couple minutes more at most. It’s far from an impressive amount of time before the repetitive motions get sluggish and drawn out, the force behind Lance’s thrusts tapering into something quieter and longer. At this point he’s probably just grinding into her, chasing his high lazily as it draws near and overwhelms him. He’s probably so much deeper inside now, probably reaching parts of her that he previously hadn’t, stretching her pussy open around the head of his cock-

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Keith hides his face in the collar of his shirt in shame. He reaches down and undoes the button of his jeans, still debating if he’s really willing to do this. This is a level of skeevy and perverted you don’t come back from, getting off to the sounds of two other people fucking in the back of the library. 

Lance would be so proud of him, given he’s practically the poster child for poorly thought-through decisions made while horny.

With that thought in mind, Keith shoves a hand into his pants and wraps it around his cock. He’s already stupidly close, even after criticizing Lance’s own stamina moments before. In Keith’s defense, he has to deal with the added layer of smelling the blood pumping through their veins as they fuck, and that in itself is a dizzying sort-of lust. 

Keith’s eyes flit around the room nervously, all too aware that somebody could walk in at any moment and see him like this. He was never one for public sex, didn’t understand the appeal until literally right this very second, so the anxiety that went along with it was immense.

Still, there is nothing quite as exquisite as finally giving himself the friction his cock has been needing since this all started. Where before it’d been left to twitch uselessly against the straining fabric of his boxers, now Keith can spread the pre-cum all over his shaft and fuck his fist properly. He tries not to jostle the chair too much, forcing his hips to stay there and not buck up into his own touch.

He’s painstakingly aware of the fact that Lance has heightened hearing as well, now more so than ever with the full moon so close. 

Oh, fuck, he hadn’t even thought… werewolves’ whole thing was their extreme sense of smell, their ability to identify any scent from miles away. It was far more intense than just a vampire’s ability to identify and smell blood types, it applied to everything. He could probably smell Keith, had probably smelled his arousal since long before Keith even bothered to try touching himself.

The thought pleases Keith more than it probably should. The knowledge that Lance had been forced to think about him, even while he was with the other woman. He was probably fucking her and wondering the entire time where Keith was, what he was doing to himself.

Keith is struck by a sudden idea that has his cock leaking pathetically and twitching against his palm, all but ready to shoot off and spill his load all over himself. Keith shivers, quickly putting his idea into action.

“ _ Lance _ .” He whispers the name quiet enough that no human would possibly be able to hear it, no matter how close to him they happened to be. Silence, for a couple seconds, and then a deep satisfied grunt.

“Gonna come, I’m gonna-” Lance bites out, a long luxurious moan following it. It’s the loudest he’s allowed himself to be this entire time, apparently censoring his reactions beyond his control when he’s slipping over the edge into his orgasm. He whimpers through it as he comes inside the condom, the sound muffled as he presumably kisses the woman he’s with. 

It’s way too close to be a coincidence. Lance had to have heard him.

Keith grins so hard he feels his fangs slice through his bottom lip, but he doesn’t care the slightest bit as he laps the blood up with a swipe of his tongue. He manages to run his hand over himself once, twice, and then he’s cumming in ribbons across the front of his shirt because he’s an idiot and didn’t think twice about the clean-up process. He still doesn’t think about it, as he melts and slumps into his chair, practically drooling with relief. 

That was the most intense orgasm of his life and he hadn’t even shared it with anyone. Well, not physically anyway. Not technically.

“Holy shit. That was  _ amazing _ .” Well, at least Lance seems to mirror the sentiment.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m the hottest piece of ass you’ve ever had. This isn’t news.” There’s more shuffling now, presumably the girl pulling her clothes back on. She seems hasty with it, stumbling and catching herself once or twice in her rush to redress. “Now I have to walk around with soaked panties the whole day because you wouldn’t stop sexting me during class. Not worth it. At all.”

“Aw, come on, Nyms? It was a little bit worth it. You came like, what, five times?”

“Twice, Casanova.”

“That’s two times more than most college guys can give you, I’ll take it.”

“I gotta go to class.” 

“I’ll call you?”

“Don’t bother offering. You always stand me up until you wanna hook up again.” Her tone isn’t rejection as much as it’s resigned acceptance, like it’s an old wound healed over. “It’s chill. I don’t really like you like that anymore anyway. Your dick is the only thing that keeps me coming back at this point. Your personality is tolerable at best.”

“Love you too, asshole.” Lance replies, but he’s speaking around a smile. Keith can just tell.

There’s the sound of retreating footsteps. It’s followed by the shuffle of clothes again, the slick sound of latex slipping off of where it’s hugging skin too-tight, and then the zip of Lance’s jeans being done up.

Realizing that he’s been basking in the afterglow for maybe an embarrassing amount of time, Keith composes himself enough to put his own softening cock away and readjust himself. His shirt’s a lost cause, but luckily he brought a nice big winter jacket that’s perfect for covering that up.

An inconspicuous whistle comes around the corner. Keith hides his smile in the curve of his palm, trying to pretend he’s actually reading the words on the page in front of him. The sound of the chair beside him sliding against the floor has Keith glancing up.

Lance looks… disheveled, to say the least. His clothes are crumpled and hanging off of his body loosely, his hair sticking up in every which direction, his neck covered in fresh hickeys. Keith is transfixed by the marks in particular, already darkening from a flushed red to a pale purple color. His fangs feel too big for his mouth again, he wishes he could sink them into someone else instead.

And Lance, the smug devil, just looks him dead in the eye and wiggles his eyebrows tellingly. 

The implications are clear when his gaze drops to the front of Keith’s ruined shirt, sees the mess he’s made of it. Lance grins lazily then, pleased with himself. He leans back and tips the front two legs of his chair off the ground, his feet resting on the table next to Keith’s schoolwork.

“Oh, hey. Look at you. All cute and studious. Working hard for the grade.” Lance teases, his voice still gravely and deep from his previous activities. Keith shoots him a glare. “Such a good student, working so hard, I bet you’d  _ never _ let yourself get distracted by something as frivolous as sex.”

“The library, Lance,  _ really _ ? Isn’t that a little perverted even for you?” Keith huffs out finally, because he isn’t going to do that thing where all of their sexual interactions only ever get to be subtextual. Maybe Lance is willing to do that, but Keith needs the bluntness. Needs to know that Lance was thinking of him, too. Needs to know he isn’t alone in wanting this to happen enough to risk everything for it.

“Oh, Red.” Lance sighs, soft and apologetic, a hand draped over his eyes dramatically. He sits up, leaning into Keith’s space, lips curled into a smile. “I _ really _ don’t think you can call anyone a pervert anymore. Not after what you just did.” 

“Shut-up.”

“Make me.” Lance counters easily, like the middle-schooler he surely never grew out of being. “ _ Pervert _ .”

“You smell like pussy.” Keith wrinkles his nose. “ _ Slut. _ ”

And then they sit there, grinning at each other like idiots, still basking in the post-orgasm feel-good hormones. No one has ever called Keith a derogatory term with such a disgusting amount of fondness in their eyes, in the curl of their lips, in the casual posture of their body language. 

“I prefer to use the term “liberal lover”, thanks.” Lance says finally, shrugging his shoulders, shameless with it. And of course he is, if the noises Keith heard were anything to go by, Lance can live up to the big game he likes to talk, even when it comes to a quickie in the back of the library.

Still, Keith teases him.

“Really? I don’t know about you, but whatever happened back there did  _ not  _ sound like love to me.”

For a very brief second, Keith pauses to wonder if he’s overstepped a boundary and if maybe their relationship is a more sensitive topic than it seemed. Lance gets this serious look on his face, biting his lip as he stares critically at Keith’s expression, as if he’s trying to read something behind it. Keith offers an awkward smile, hoping to drop whatever tension’s come over them. He’s still too giddy to really play into any fighting, playing or otherwise.

Finally, Lance cracks a smile. He reaches over, hand gently tucking a strand of hair that’s fallen out of Keith’s ponytail back into place behind his ear. Lance just keeps staring, but this time it isn’t searching as much as it’s admiring, eyes filled with a warmth like no other. 

Of course Lance is a softie after sex, of fucking course he is, and here Keith is reaping all the rewards and he wasn’t even the one to get him off (well, not technically).

“You’re kinda cute when you’re jealous.” Lance breathes, quiet for the first time and somehow Keith doubts he’s starting to respect the library rules out of nowhere. It’s more likely he doesn’t want to ruin the moment, overdo it and tilt the scales of the feeble balance working between them.

God, Keith has never wanted anyone or anything quite like this. Like he would take on the world to have them, no matter the risk. Which is a damn stupid way to feel because he’s well-aware of the risk and it’s a lot worse than just the usual broken heart could be. He’s putting Lance in danger just by staying near him, and that’s one risk he isn’t willing to take.

He wipes the blush from his face, tries not to look as smitten and lovesick as he feels. 

He turns back to his textbook.

“Why would I be jealous of her? Anyone could have what she has. You’re not exactly a commodity, there’s plenty of Lance McClain to go around. And around. And  _ around _ .”

“I get the hint.” Lance growls out, low and displeased, and Keith risks a glance over at him just to see the irritated expression he wears. Keith can almost imagine the way his wolf ears would be flattened back against his head in agitation. Keith smirks.

He’s so certain he has the upper hand, that he got the closing argument again, that when the rug is swept out from under him he hits the ground hard.

Lance reaches across the table to where Keith is fiddling with his pencil distractedly as he reads, and he snatches the writing utensil right out of Keith’s grip. There’s a protest somewhere on his tongue, maybe even one in the form of a punch to Lance’s stupidly bulky bicep, but he forgets about it when Lance flattens his fingers out across the table. One by one, he bends them down until his hand his held flat and open, the perfect position for someone else to slot theirs against it.

Lance grabs his hand, intertwines their fingers, then directs their held hands down to sit on his thigh. 

There’s nothing sexual about it. Keith is floundering. He can only imagine how red he’s getting.

“Sure, anyone could have what she has, you’re not wrong.” Lance muses, toying idly with Keith’s fingers, smiling down at his own lap rather than looking Keith in the eye as he continues. “But you don’t really  _ want  _ what she has, do you? You want something _ more _ . You’re greedy like that. You wanna stake a claim that no one else has made over me.”

The words pull at a deep longing in Keith’s chest, have his eyes darting to the purpling marks littered across Lance’s neck in varying shades. He’s thought about staking a claim more ways than he can count, thought about anything he could possibly do to make sure no one else gets their hands on Lance again, not while he’s around. But Lance isn’t his to claim, even though he’s offering, Keith can’t bring himself to be selfish enough to take.

He had this problem the first time he tried to feed. It’s not the same at all, but the hungry and unsatisfied feeling in his gut is. His first week of being a vampire he’d nearly starved, even as his master brought him human consorts to do with what he pleased. Keith couldn’t bring himself to do it, to take an ounce of blood from someone else. Who was he to be so entitled? To think that his life continuing was worth ending another living beings?

Almost every vampire kills their first feed. His master had told him that. Before you learn how to hold yourself back and recognize the limit between sustenance and pleasure, it’s impossible to stop yourself from taking too much. Keith couldn’t live with the idea of being a murderer, so he’d been determined to starve himself. He would rather die than be a monster.

But his master didn’t see that as an option, not after the way he’d inconvenienced himself to give Keith a few drops of his blood before murdering him that night. So, when Keith was on his last legs and so weak he couldn’t have fought the urge if he tried, his master brought a body to him. Freshly-killed. Blood still warm where it was leaking out across the slice across the throat. 

Keith couldn’t stop himself then, didn’t have the will to fight anymore as his master’s fingers painted red across his lips, tempting him even further. The smell was heavenly, the first taste on the tip of his tongue borderline euphoric. He drank until there wasn’t anything left to drink. He just kept taking, taking, taking.

Keith didn’t want to drain Lance. Physically, emotionally, it didn’t matter. Keith was a leech on everyone he interacted with now, a risk to be taken that most of his friends were never even granted the awareness to consent to. They didn’t know the danger they were in by being around him. Keith had to selfishly assume they would stick around even if they did. 

Even though he knows they wouldn’t. Lance was right, the humans would run screaming if they knew.

Lance is a conundrum, as usual. He’s the only person outside of Keith’s coven that knows what he is, that has the ability to decide for himself whether he wants to take the risk. It’s obvious what his decision is. 

But Keith doesn’t know if he can stand by it. 

Not if it means watching Lance’s choices come back to haunt him.

“In your dreams, wolf boy.” Keith hisses at him, but it’s not very convincing. He sounds weak, the weight of his emotions weighing down the otherwise playful words. Lance can tell something’s bothering him, he’s always been attentive, shifting and molding himself around Keith’s volatile moods like flowing water around an obstacle. He’s flexible, does acrobatics if it means he gets to stay close to Keith, gets to have even this much of him.

Lance doesn’t call him out. He just smiles this knowing smile and drops the topic altogether. 

He leans back in his seat, lazily stretching one arm out above his head, the other one staying exactly where it is because god forbid he so much as jostles their intertwined hands and inspires Keith to pull away from him.

Keith relents, squeezing Lance’s hand in his, a silent reassurance that he’s not ready to speak aloud yet.

He might never be, with all the obstacles between them. He doesn’t want to lead Lance on.

But Lance just looks so unequivocally happy. Plain as plain can be, he’s making no effort to put on an act or appear tough now, he’s just grinning dopily up at the ceiling. He’s never looked so at ease in his life and the full moon is just a few days away. Keith’s a little bit overwhelmed to see how much power he has over Lance. Sure, he’d known to an extent, but this is something else.

“There is nothing you could say to me right now that would break this high, dude.” Lance says, inhaling deeply and letting his eyes fall shut. Keith stares, drinks him in without guilt when he knows Lance isn’t watching, lets his dark eyes roam over the column of Lance’s long neck again. Fuck. “This is the best part of being a werewolf. The week before a full moon. I feel so powerful. _ Invincible _ .”

“Yeah?” 

“Mhm, if we were actually enemies you wouldn’t stand a chance against me right now.” 

“You’re full of yourself as always, I see.”

“I’m not kidding. I’m like a fucking beast when I get like this. I could take on an army and _ win. _ ”

And well, to his credit, Lance does sound genuinely convinced that he’s telling the truth.

Keith doesn’t believe him. Of course Keith doesn’t believe him. He’s seen strength, he’s seen thousand year old vampires on the hunt, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, stalking their prey. He’s seen how fast they are, how strong they are, how they lose their humanity and turn into a monster before his eyes the moment the blood starts spilling. 

Sure, Lance turns into a big dog once a month, but that’s nowhere near the same thing as intentionally hunting down and killing people for the sport of it. Lance could never even begin to understand that.

Even in his wolf form, Keith is willing to bet he’s just a big puppy, underneath all the teeth and claws.

“Prove it.” Keith deadpans. The challenge sits heavy in the air. Lance contemplates.

“How d’you expect me to prove it, huh?” Lance chuckles, low and dark. He thinks Keith is in way over his head, that Keith is being a naive fool to think he isn’t strong. It’s annoying Keith the slightest bit, Keith who has to make a conscious effort to hold himself back at all times, inhuman strength thrumming heavily in his veins. Lance doesn’t get it. He never will. “Want me to pin you down in the library? Bend your arm back until you cry for mercy? Make you beg?”

“I was gonna say we could have an arm wrestle, actually.” 

“Fine.” Lance untangles their hands, making a show of cracking his knuckles. He rolls his shoulders. “I’ll play along, but don’t come crying to me when I kick your ass.”

“I won’t.” Keith is certain that won’t happen. “There won’t be any ass kicking to cry about, I think we both know you’re biting off more than you can chew here. I’m a vampire, Lance. Come on.”

“Alright, if you’re so sure about that, let’s bet on it.” 

“What are your terms?” Keith rests his chin in his palm, tilting it curiously to the side, eyes alight with intrigue no matter how he tries to hide it. There’s something about his relationship with Lance that’s a constant competition, despite the fact he’s recognizing they’re on the same team now. It’s less wanting to one-up each other and prove themselves now, it’s more like they’re trying to impress each other.

“If I win, I can kiss you.” Lance says, straight-faced, not a hint of sarcasm. “Just once.”

“ _ And if I win _ , you’ll admit that vampires are dangerous and a bigger threat than you let on. You’ll accept that when I tell you to keep your distance and respect my coven, you have to listen to me.”

“Deal.” Lance agrees easily, holding his hand out to shake on it. Keith takes it, sliding his calloused hand into Lance’s soft palm once again, surprised the slightest bit when Lance’s grip tightens into something much firmer, firm enough to have Keith’s fingers feeling weak under the pressure.

Then Lance lets go, readjusting himself to sit with his elbow on the table. He nods at Keith and Keith does the same, setting himself up for their competition. He wiggles his fingers, eyes narrowing in determination. If the handshake was anything to go off of, then maybe Lance is slightly stronger than he previously thought. Nowhere near as strong as a vampire, though.

Their hands fold around each other and Keith immediately puts his full force into it, grinning something devilish as he prepares to pin Lance’s hand to the table with ease. He hardly has time to start pushing back against Lance before a thud sounds around the room, the table creaking uselessly under the weight of the hand that had just hit it.

Keith stares wide-eyed.

Lance erupts into a fit of laughter, smug and pleased with himself.

“Looks like I win.” Lance is clutching his stomach as he shakes with laughter, so thoroughly amused that it’s starting to genuinely irritate Keith, which hasn’t happened for a while around Lance. Keith stares at his hand where it’s still resting on the table, even now that Lance has let it go, like even the limb hasn’t registered what happened yet. Jesus. It happened in the blink of an eye, a millisecond, faster than even Keith’s vampire senses could truly comprehend. No way.

“You didn’t give me any warning!” 

“Alright, on the count of three.” Lance relents easily, but there’s something mischievous about it, like he’s only doing it to wind Keith up even more. They slot their hands together, eyes blazing as they stare into each other’s, glares vicious. Keith is pretty sure he can catch a glint of yellow pooling into the blues of Lance’s irises like this. 

One.

Two.

Three.

Keith’s hand is pinned to the table in an instant again, this time with even more force, enough to leave the indentations of his knuckles behind in the wood. Keith flinches, knowing from the shooting pain and accompanying sickening crack that he probably broke something, but it’ll reset itself and heal fast enough. Keith bares his teeth in a snarl, watching as Lance laughs like a hungry hyena again. “I win.” 

“One more time, all or nothing.” Keith demands, slamming his own hand down on the table with a resounding echo through the room. Someone a couple aisles over curses and shouts at them to shut the fuck up, but they both elect to ignore it. All of their attention is busy, focused on the heated stare down going on between them. “You win this time and I’ll let you kiss me with tongue.”

Lance’s grin curls around his face like the licking flames of a fire, hot and dangerous.

“You’re on.” Lance says, grabbing Keith’s hand again before they’re even situated. He waits patiently until Keith is caught up to him, the both of them braced and ready during the countdown. The second Lance says three, Keith starts pushing with all of his body strength. He braces a foot on the floor just to put extra weight behind it, fangs out and glinting as he grits his teeth through it. Slowly, surely, Lance’s hand just barely starts to edge toward the table.

Keith laughs to himself, grinning as he pushes even harder, Lance’s hand falling another inch or two. It’s so fucking close to the surface of the table, practically touching, just a little bit more, and-

Roles reverse. Keith’s hand hits the table in the opposite direction. All the meticulous progress he’d made backtracked in an instant, the very second Lance started to put the barest amount of energy into it. 

“I’m starting to wonder if you’re losing on purpose.”

“Fuck off.” Keith hisses at him, collapsing back into his seat and folding his arms angrily over his chest. He slouches down into himself, scowling at the table so hard it almost looks like he’s blaming the furniture for his own shortcomings. He just can’t fucking believe it. There’s no way Lance is actually stronger than him, not to that extent. How much can the stupid full moon really change things?

“Oh, sweetheart, don’t pout. You’re breaking my heart.” Lance leans in close, resting his head on Keith’s shoulder like he has any right to. He presses a kiss to the skin of Keith’s collarbone, just visible above the collar of his shirt. “Wanna know a secret? I wasn’t even trying the first half. I was letting you win because I felt bad for you. And it was so cute watching that hope spark in your eyes. You really thought you stood a chance against a werewolf just days before a full moon. That’s so fucking precious.”

“Whatever.”

“So? What’s the next bet gonna be?” Lance is just rubbing salt in the wound at this point, getting off on puffing his chest and boasting his physical prowess. It’s a dominance thing, Lance probably can’t even help himself, but Keith is silently fuming all the same. “I’m thinking you should start taking off articles of clothing every time you lose, that’d be really fun.”

“Yeah?” Keith hums, full of thought. He turns his head to the side, where Lance is resting his head on his shoulder so closely, and their noses nearly brush. Keith’s eyelashes flutter, and he leans in an inch closer, brushing his lips ever so lightly across Lance’s plush ones. “Maybe I will.”

“Really?” Lance breathes out, so desperate it isn’t even funny. Keith leans slowly backward, Lance chases uselessly after him, leaning in and trying to reinitiate the bare beginnings of a kiss that Keith had offered him. Keith leans back further and further, until Lance is crowding him against the chair and distracted, his balance the last of his concerns-

Bam. Keith gets one hand on Lance’s hip and the other between his shoulder blades, effortlessly body slamming him into the table. Lance’s chest hits the table and Keith presses the whole of his body weight down on top of him, trying to keep him pinned like that. Lance straight up growls, to the point that Keith is sure everyone else will think a wild animal has been smuggled into the library. He starts to struggle and instantly it’s clear he could easily buck Keith off, probably send him flying across the room. Keith has the very distinct feeling that he’s trying to hold onto a beast that just isn’t meant to be caged, in any way, shape, or form.

But then Lance goes painstakingly still beneath his hold, his growl filtering out into something quiet, a pleased gurgle of sorts. Lance looks up at him, eyes imploring. Tempting him to make the next move.

Keith swallows harshly. Fuck. He hadn’t realized what a compromising position he found himself in until just now. If anyone were to walk around the corner, which they’re surely begging for with all the strange noises, then the stranger would come face to face with Keith pinning Lance down, leaning over him from behind. Lance’s ass is pressed flush to Keith’s front. Keith is forcing him to stay that way, to submit to him, and Lance isn’t complaining as much as he’s trembling in anticipation.

The air between them has shifted from competitive to horny in an instant again.

“Brute strength is worthless if you can be outsmarted this easily, Lance.” Keith says, trying to get back to the original point he’d been trying to make here. But Lance’s eyes are glassy, fogged over with lust so plain to see that even Keith feels a little bit hazy. He means to back away, his point made, and try to reestablish the easygoing energy from before. 

Instead, what does Keith do? He grinds forward without thinking, hips stuttering before he can stop them. Lance whimpers pathetically, pressing his hips back. He’s arching his back, standing on the tips of his toes, rocking back and forth in the spot. And he just looks so fucking… ready for it. Like Keith could pull his joggers down and slide right inside, fuck him hard and unforgiving just like that. Lance would probably thank him. 

But Keith can’t. He can’t do it. He can’t fucking do this. 

He’s supposed to be keeping his distance, not getting ready to dry hump the guy in a library.

So, summoning all of the self control Keith has left, he takes a step backward. Lance immediately moves to follow, before he’s even registered where Keith is going. Keith places a hand at the nape of his neck and pushes him back down. In a moment of weakness, before pulling away he lets his hand wander up into Lance’s hair. 

“Be a good boy and  _ stay _ , huh? Do you know that command?”

He slides his fingers through the silky strands just like he’s thought of doing so many times, dragging his nails across Lance’s scalp in a slow scratch. Lance is fucking vibrating, groaning happily, Keith is pretty sure his leg is thumping like a dog’s. It’s too cute. He hasn’t even registered Keith’s words yet.

Keith turns away with a pained expression. 

Lance comes back to himself the moment Keith’s hand is off of him.

“Where are you going?” Lance asks without a beat of hesitation. “Did your maker summon you, did he-”

Keith looks up from where he’d been in the process of shoving his books back into his bag, reluctantly making eye contact. Lance is slowly lifting himself off the table, eyes wide and invested. He’s definitely waiting on a decent explanation for why the sudden whiplash was necessary. He wants Keith to explain, to tell him the truth. Keith doesn’t think he can, as much as it hurts to disappoint.

“I have somewhere I have to be.” Keith says with a shrug, slinging his bag over his shoulder and trying to appear indifferent toward the whole exchange. Lance is still staring at him, his expression so openly lost that it hurts. He’s wearing his heart on his sleeve and Keith is closing off. “Nothing personal.”

“Feels pretty personal.”

“Well, it isn’t.” Keith turns on his heel, ready to march out of the library as quickly as his feet can quietly carry him. The guilt is already eating him alive and he imagines it’ll only get worse once he’s along and can think back on the heartbreak in Lance’s eyes just before he turned away. He’s a terrible, terrible person. Maybe he already is the monster he’s trying so hard not to be.

He makes it into the next aisle before Lance is at his side, grabbing wrist.

“Keith, don’t go.” Lance pleads, leaning into his side. Keith stiffens as Lance engulfs him in a hug, the scent of his blood close enough now that it’s the only thing on Keith’s mind. All of his thoughts and emotions disappear, making way for a desperate desire that stages a mutiny on his brain and takes him out from the inside. Keith forgets he ever wanted to protest the embrace and he has to wonder if that was maybe Lance’s intention. “Just… stay. Read your stupid book. I won’t even talk and distract you this time, I swear.”

“Lance-”

“I’m not trying to pressure you into anything, Keith. We can still be friends. Just friends. As much as I’d love to be your boyfriend or whatever, I get it if that’s not on the table right now. I respect it.” Lance continues hurriedly, like he might not get the chance to say any of this again if he doesn’t get it off his chest now. 

He pulls back to give Keith this hopeful stare, his bottom lip jutting out, and it’s such a low blow because he has to _ know _ there’s no saying no to that face. “I know I’m a dog, but I can be patient… sometimes.”

Keith stays glued to the spot.

He’s a weak, weak man.

“How can you be so confident about it? You bring up your feelings for me like they’re nothing.”

“I mean, it’s not like you don’t already know how I feel. If you were out to reject me it would have happened by now.” Lance says it so casually, but Keith still finds it hard to believe he’s actually not bothered by the runaround Keith’s been giving him. The whiplash of being wanted and then shoved away, accepted and then rejected, back and forth. “I know you have your reasons. I trust you.”

Lance trusts him. It shouldn’t come as a shock to him, but Keith has spent the last six months doubting everything about himself in this new life, so to hear someone else sound so certain in him is refreshing to say the least. Lance doesn’t seem like he’s saying it with a motive in mind, he just honestly means it. He really means it. Keith has been nothing but secretive, sending him constant mixed signals, but Lance’s faith in him was unwavering and boundless.

God, Lance deserves so much better than Keith could ever give him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Lance insists, cupping Keith’s face between his hands. When Keith doesn’t immediately try to dodge away from his hold, only continues to sit there moping with a frown on his face, Lance tightens his grip. He strokes his thumbs over Keith’s cheekbones, tracing them out. “I’m serious, you have nothing to be sorry for. You don’t owe me anything.”

“But-”

“Besides, the chase is half the fun.” Lance changes the subject easily, dropping Keith’s face to twirl around and head back to the table. Keith is left blinking after him. Lance is so good at that, never taking anything too seriously. In the beginning, Keith had found it annoying, now he recognizes it for what a valuable skill it is, how he’s keeping things light and easy for Keith’s sake. No pressure, just like he’d said before. A man of his word.

Keith follows behind him, sitting in the same chair from before. “If you gave it all up to me from the start you’d be no different than all my other hook-ups in libraries or bathrooms. You’re a challenge. A tease. I have to earn it.”

“And you’re confident that you will, eventually, earn it?” Keith asks, slow and skeptical, needing a boost of neverending optimism like Lance seemed to run on. The other boy pauses, turning to look at Keith with a cryptic little squint. And then he’s reaching down between the two of them, winding his fingers through Keith’s again and squeezing.

“What do you think I’m doing right now?” Lance counters, playfully. “Careful Keith, you’re smiling so hard I think your fangs might scare the students.”

Keith hadn’t even realized when he went from wanting to cry to smiling, but Lance is telling the truth. He is wearing such an ear-splitting wide grin that his fangs are poking out, visible to anyone that happened to get a glimpse of it. Keith licks his lips, trying to will his canines to retract. It doesn’t work, he ends up just making a ridiculous face for thirty seconds, trying in vain to clear the head fog of Lance’s scent from his mind. Lance watches him the whole time, amused.

“Don’t  _ you  _ have somewhere to be?”

“Better than where I’m at right now? I don’t think so.” Lance gives a long bellowing yawn, then slumps forward and buries his face in his one free arm. He adjusts himself a little bit, pulling his hood over his head to try and hide his face behind it, but otherwise he looks like he’s getting situated to stay just like that for a prolonged amount of time. He looks like he’s going to take a nap. While holding Keith’s hand.

Without Lance’s probing gaze on him, Keith pulls out his textbook and prepares to get to work. He honestly does need to study for his exam, though he can’t help but wonder why Lance isn’t doing the same. He’s not going to push the issue though, not when Lance looks so content where he is.

A couple hours pass and Lance is out like a light the entire time, his breathing deep and even in Keith’s ears, a calming background noise for while he works. Every now and then he catches himself glancing over at Lance, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he debates with himself whether it’d be a total invasion of privacy to gently pull his hood back and get a good look at his sleeping face.

Well, Lance stalked him around campus for almost a week straight, this is probably fair game.

After pulling that hood back enough to expose Lance’s content sleeping face, Keith gets approximately nothing done for work. He can’t tear his eyes off of it. Lance’s fluttering eyelashes, the way his eyebrows crease together when an unpleasant thought crosses his unconscious mind, the way his plump pink lips stay pursed entire time. His hair falls carelessly in his face, nothing like the usual meticulously styled swoop he keeps it in. Keith attempts to push it back into place more than once, but it only ends up falling across the bridge of his nose again, so Keith gives up.

About an hour passes like that, Keith terribly distracted, Lance mumbling useless gibberish in his sleep about nothing in particular. Keith is just starting to get back into the groove again when Lance’s arms slide across the table, stretching out like a cat, languid and full.

“My mind has been moving a million miles a second all week long. I needed that.” Lance sighs, his voice still gruff with sleep. He shifts around, trying to get comfortable again, and Keith resists the urge to offer himself up as tribute and become a living pillow. Lance’s eyes fall closed again, but he distractedly keeps talking, mostly to himself. “It’s nice to have a chance to just breathe. It helps that it’s next to you, your scent is so calming. No one would believe me if I told them that, apparently we’re supposed to be able to smell out vampires and the desired effect definitely isn’t fucking calming. But you’re just… familiar. It’s nice.”

“Is that why you were following me around like a lost puppy every night?”

“Part of it, maybe.” Lance’s eyes flutter open, as deep and as blue as the sea as they fix themselves on Keith’s face. Keith feels like he’s stuck in the undertow, being pulled under with every second Lance stares longingly into his eyes. “I’m really sorry, I know I was totally out of line to do that. It just gets so fucking hard to control myself and it gets even harder every night. My wolf is so insatiable, it literally doesn’t take no for an answer. If it ever pulls a stunt like that again, just whip out the mace and go ham. I mean it. No hard feelings.”

“Lance.”

“What? Why are you laughing?!” Lance sits up, squinting from sleep and laughing around the dryness of his throat. Keith shakes his head fondly, his giggles slowly filtering out.

“I’m not going to  _ mace you _ .” Keith says, finally. “It’s fine, Lance. I forgive you. We both have our quirks.”

“I think I’m gonna have to keep you around. You make this so much easier.” 

“Do I?” Keith muses, trying to scan through just a couple more pages of text. Lance is needy in his half-awake state, though, more-so than usual. His grip on Keith’s hand has tightened and he drags it up into his lap again, tracing circles in Keith’s palm with his pointer finger. Gentle. 

“Normally, I can’t sleep the entire week leading up to it.” Lance admits, smiling down at their interlocked hands, his eyes drooping as he struggles not to pass out again. “It’s like I chugged buckets and buckets of coffee, but I’m so aware that I’m living on borrowed energy. After the full moon passes I always crash, sometimes worse than others, and I can tell this is gonna be a rough one. I’m exhausted already, underneath all the adrenaline.”

Hearing the exhaustion in Lance’s words is something else, the dread that’s settled heavy over his shoulders and won’t part until the full moon has passed. Only for it to come back the next month, and the month after that, and every month for the rest of his life. And maybe Keith  _ had _ been being self absorbed, only choosing to see the hardships of being a vampire when it was so clear they both had individual struggles. Lance doesn’t have it easy by any means.

Keith reaches around behind himself, to where he’d left this winter jacket hanging on his chair.

A moment later and he’s laying it gently over Lance’s slumped shoulders, tucking it in close around his body, making sure it keeps the heat in. Lance picks his head up again, staring up at Keith, eyes lidded and filled with affection. He bites his lip, pulling it back and forth between his teeth.

“What?” Keith huffs, just daring him to say something about it. 

“Nothing.” Lance settles on, like a coward. He reaches up, pulling Keith’s jacket in close to himself, really snuggling into the plush faux-fur material. Lance looks completely pleased with himself, the cat who got the cream. He even nuzzles into the collar of the jacket and inhales deeply, scenting it. “Nothing at all.”

“ _ What _ ?” Keith repeats it, this time with a bit more push behind the question. 

“You’re totally falling for me.” Lance says, easy, just like that. 

“Keep telling yourself that. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“Because you care  _ so much  _ about me getting a healthy amount of sleep, right?”

“You’re an insufferable bastard.”

“Thanks, Keith.” Lance chuckles abruptly, eyes downcast. It’s a very rare moment that Lance McClain looks shy, but there’s no other way to describe this. The faintest of pink blushes is crawling up to the tips of his ears and Keith is awed by it. “Really, I mean it. I really missed this. Missed you.”

“I missed you too.” The words leave Keith’s lips before he can stop himself. Nevermind that he’s the reason they were spending time apart in the first place, nevermind that he’s trying to approach this with tough love and put distance between them. He can’t even try, not when Lance looks like  _ that _ .

Keith leans in, eyes glued to where Lance’s lips are pursed in concentration. The magnetic pull that draws him closer isn’t entirely unlike that first time he fed as a vampire. It’s different though. It isn’t the succinct pull of lust, yanking him in hard and forcing him to take what he wants. There’s no urgency, no crawling sense of desperation, no pressure.

He’s drawn in like a moth to a flame, clumsy and filled with longing to comprehend, slow as slow can be.

Lance still doesn’t look up the entire time it takes him to lean in, still hiding his nervousness.

Their lips finally press together and Lance makes a startled noise in the back of his throat, hands flying up between them. For an instant, Keith almost worries Lance is about to use that superhuman strength to shove him off, startled by the kiss as he is. But then his hands still, resting on Keith’s chest, and instead curl into tight fists around the fabric of his ruined shirt. Lance pulls him in harder by his grip on his clothes, overeager as always.

Keith smiles against his lips, sighing open-mouthed into the hot space between them. His tongue darts out and traces the line of Lance’s bottom lip, finding it to be just as slick and inviting as it’d always looked. Keith still wants to bite it. He wills himself not to, doesn’t want to lose control and involve blood in this. It’s not about that, it’s about Lance.

Beautiful, responsive, eager Lance. He lets Keith lick into his mouth and carve out a spot for himself there. Keith is admittedly nervous, knows he isn’t anywhere near as experienced as Lance in the art of kissing, wonders why he’s the one leading things. But Lance is so patient with him, gives Keith plenty of time to get comfortable, to familiarize himself with what has Lance’s heart rate soaring excitedly and what has him sheepishly backing off a bit. Keith is a fast learner, at least.

He wants to make this good for Lance. He wants to pour every emotion he can’t express otherwise into where their lips are locked, pray that Lance drinks them down and just inherently knows what Keith is trying to say. He can’t say it. He wants to, though. Keith wishes more than anything that he could tell Lance how he feels, especially right now.

Keith pulls back, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. Lance is sitting there with a dazed look on his face, Keith reaches out to ping him on the nose. Lance goes cross-eyed staring at the place of impact.

“Nearly forgot your prize.”

“Damn.” Lance licked his lips. “Tell me when you’re ready for another rematch.”

\--

In a moment of puppy-dog eyed induced weakness, Keith agrees to let Lance walk him back to the dorms once he’s finished with studying. Lance is all too eager, practically stepping on Keith’s heels in his rush to get him outside, to get him back home. With all the obvious pent-up excitement, Keith is fully prepared for a repeat of the night before, for Lance to be handsy and hungry. The sun is setting, after all, and Lance had tried to warn him.

Anyway, Keith knows the risks, both of being caught by a coven member spending time with Lance and of Lance using his strength for less than chivalry purposes. Keith walks home with him anyway.

And Lance is… infuriatingly well-behaved. He’s the perfect gentleman, courteous and considerate, almost to an unsettling degree. He keeps his hands stuffed firmly down into his pockets, even when Keith’s own hand hangs between them, outturned and empty, practically begging to be held. Lance talks about neutral subjects, the most boring things he can think of, the entire way back.

By the time they finally make it back to Keith’s dorm, his patience is dwindling. 

“Well, goodnight.” Keith tells him, turning around in the doorway and hesitating. He doesn’t want to leave off this quickly. Even though they’ve spent the entire day together, he feels like he’s missing out on something. Damn it, he took the risk of letting Lance walk him home, he wants more than just this to show for it! He wants Lance to crowd him up against the cool, brick wall again. He wants Lance to want him so badly he loses control again, can hardly hold himself back.

Damn it, okay, it was hot! It was hot and he doesn’t know how to admit that to Lance without making it the most embarrassing confession of all time. 

“Night.” Lance offers up a little wave, turning abruptly to walk away. 

“I’ll see you again tomorrow?” Keith calls after him impulsively. Lance turns around to look at him, an easy smile on his face. He’s so sweet he’s oblivious to the fact that it’s now Keith trying to hold himself back from pouncing, from pulling Lance close and taking what he wants. 

“Maybe. Might make myself scarce. The last couple days are the hardest.” Lance shrugs. Keith feels something inside himself crumble at the thought of not seeing Lance for a few days. He knows he’s not supposed to, that his master told him to keep his distance… but that’s not reason enough for him to stop. 

“Do you wanna come inside?” The words are past Keith’s lips before he has a chance to think twice.

“Excuse me?”

“You. Inside.” Keith repeats, then scrunches his eyebrows together. “My dorm, not my body.”

“Yeah, no, I got that.” Despite claiming to understand, Lance is still looking at him on complete and total confusion. He has his head tilted to the side, eyes wide and bugged out. It’d be kind of cute if it also wasn’t a blatant rejection that has Keith pouting at not getting his way. “Are you insane? The moon is climbing into the sky as we speak.”

“I’m aware. You said I help you sleep. Imagine how much better you’d feel if you caught up on a whole night’s worth of it. You’d be in much better shape for when the full moon actually hits.” Keith folds his arms over his chest. He continues quietly, definitely not pleading with Lance to say, even though it starts to feel more like that the more he watches Lance’s expression soften with understanding. 

“Keith,” Lance inhales sharply, walking up the steps to stand in front of Keith. His hands are unmistakably gentle as they cup Keith’s face between them. Lance leans in, pressing their foreheads together, eyes falling shut as he visibly shakes with the effort to hold himself back. “You’re inviting a wild animal into your bed, seriously. Think this through.”

“I don’t know. I’ve trained you pretty well. I’d say you’re domesticated at this point.” Keith jokes, hand coming up to grasp Lance’s throat, teasing. “You’d probably even let me fit a collar around your neck, if I asked nicely enough.”

“Now isn’t a good time, sweetheart.” Lance smiles at him, but it’s strained, his jaw clenched so tightly it looks like those pearly white teeth might shatter. He turns to leave, untangles himself from Keith and heads down the steps. “If you still want me after the full moon, I’m yours. Any way you want me. I’ll spend every night with you, every day, you’ll be back to wishing I would leave you the hell alone. I just don’t trust myself not to hurt you when I’m like this.”

Keith thinks he must be pretty messed up, to see Lance so visibly struggling to hold himself back from  _ hurting him  _ and still only feel longing in his chest. Being hurt by Lance doesn’t sound like such a bad thing at all, not from where he’s standing. Lance looks damn good tonight, as the moon rises higher and has him standing taller, confidence rolling off of him in waves again as he walks away.

Keith can’t let him walk away.

It’s clear Lance is struggling to anyway, his hands curled into tight fists and each step robotic with how he forces himself to keep moving away from Keith. Neither one of them really wants to separate, so would it be such a bad thing for Keith to be selfish and make sure they don’t?

Keith steps out of the doorway.

Down the three steps to the path.

He runs after Lance, circles around to stand in front of him.

His hand rests in the center of Lance’s chest, eyes alight with mischief.

“And if I  _ want  _ you to hurt me?” Keith drawls, tongue darting across his lips as he steps closer. Lance’s face scrunches up, almost pained as he tilts his head back to try feebly to put space between them. Keith just keeps moving in though, determined to get what he wants. 

He presses his face into the curve of Lance’s neck again, inhales sharply and feels his entire body go dizzy with the sensation. His hand in the center of Lance’s chest trails down, down, down… until he’s cupping Lance’s cock through his jogging pants. It’s half hard already, just begging for more attention, so Keith gives it a squeeze. Lance’s hips buck forward into the touch immediately.

And that’s when everything falls apart, every last speck of control leaving them both.

Where Lance's hands are curled into fists at his sides, shaking and tense with the task of keeping to themselves... something shifts. Lance presses his nails into his palm just a bit too deeply in his struggle to control himself and it breaks skin in a clean slice.

The smell of blood in the air hits Keith all at once.

It would be hard to resist fresh blood at any other time, but all bets are off when it's Lance's blood. He's been smelling it for so long now that his mouth salivates at the first whiff of it. 

He pounces on Lance and grabs his hand, trying to wrench it up. He's feral about it, snarling and hissing, claws scrabbling across Lance’s forearm as he desperately pulls it in. He’s just about got the wound pressed to his mouth when Lance’s free hand settles heavy on his chin and holds him back. It’s effortless, like Keith isn’t put the entirety of his strength into trying to get at the blood. Keith whines pitifully.

“Easy, Red.” Lance snickers, but it isn’t the same rehearsed sweet voice from before. It’s a low grumble, practically a growl, something unhinged and out of control in its own right. Lance’s grip on Keith’s jaw tightens, and for the first time in months Keith feels like he might bruise. Lance tugs him bodily closer by that grip and that grip alone, and Keith has no choice but to walk with it or be dragged in. “Generally speaking, the wolf doesn’t like being bitten.”

“Smells so fucking good.” Keith whimpers, entire body trembling with need. He licks his lips, desperate, eyes zeroed in on where the red is beading up from the tiny cut.

“Yeah? You want it that badly?” Lance grins, smugness radiating off of him. He lifts his bloodied palm and Keith practically salivates at the sight, entire body tensing with the urge to get at it, at any cost. He can’t fight against Lance though, knows he wouldn’t win, is paralyzed beneath that heavy stare. Deep and primal, yellow glinting in his irises like it’s a challenge. 

Keith watches helplessly as Lance brings the wound to his lips, and where it looks like he might lick it up, instead he smears the bright red across the arch of his cupid’s bow, the curve of his pretty pout. His lips shine red and wet. His eyes darken. “Kiss it off me, baby.”

The moment Lance’s hand stops holding him off, Keith is darting forward as fast as he physically can.

He collides with Lance with enough force to have them both stumbling backward, falling clumsily into the grass. Their mouths meet in an angry clash, hot and heavy right from the start, as sexually charged as every other interaction they’ve had today but worse.

Worse because Lance isn’t holding himself back anymore, possibly can’t even if he tries. When Keith clambers on top of him and licks the blood from his lips with a desperation that has his entire body shaking with excitement, Lance’s hands settle on Keith’s hips and flex sharp nails into his skin. Keith snarls into the kiss, hands dragging across Lance’s chest and shredding the hoodie clinging to his shoulders into pieces.

It’s rough, to anyone else it would look like they’re grappling against each other in a fight, rolling around in the dirt and trying to come out on top no matter what low blows they have to pull.

Keith kisses Lance so fiercely that he forgets about how out of place and awkward his fangs feel in his mouth, especially when Lance runs his tongue over them experimentally and pricks it in the process. So there’s more blood, fresh and straight from the source, and Keith sucks Lance’s tongue past his lips and keeps it there. Hungry, relishing every drop, breathing heavily through his nose and gulping in Lance’s scent like he’ll never smell it again.

Lance isn’t the type to lie back and take it though, at least not when he’s this close to transforming. He gets himself on top of Keith instead. He slams Keith down into the ground with enough force to knock the air from his lungs, but Keith doesn’t care about air, he only cares about the sweet relief of blood trickling down his throat. He’ll let Lance do anything he damn well pleases with him, just as long as he gets to keep tasting this.

Lance spreads Keith’s thighs open and fits himself between them, presses their bodies flush together. His entire body moves as he kisses, rolling languidly as his tongue explores Keith’s mouth, effortlessly dominates the kiss the moment he tries to. Lance’s hips move so fast it’s overstimulating right from the start, Keith’s cock giving a valiant effort to keep up with the pace, but he can already feel how close he is to coming in his pants.

Keith is left shaking beneath him, feeling high off the taste.

It’s everything he imagined it would be, Lance’s blood. It lives up to all of his wildest fantasies and deepest selfish desires. It’s been the forbidden fruit for so long he’d more or less accepted that he’d never get to taste it, and even now he’s hardly getting enough to truly savour it, but the flavor is surreal. It’s heavenly. It’s sex, straight and simple, the euphoric pleasure of orgasm has nothing on the taste of Lance’s blood. He could drink him dry and still never be satisfied.

Fuck. Fuck!

Lance fits a hand around Keith’s throat and slams it back into the dirt with a growl, bracing himself above Keith’s body. Keith hadn’t even realized he was chasing after more, heavy fangs threatening to bite into Lance’s lips to seek it out. But Lance must have noticed.

Or maybe… it had less to do with Keith trying to suck his blood, more to do with something else.

Lance lifts himself up onto his arms above Keith, a low growl snarling out of his chest. He’s hunched over, sheltering Keith against his chest, protective. Slowly, Keith comes to grips with the situation and realizes that there’s something else going on outside of their embrace. Keith follows his line of sight and freezes.

It’s only really a flash of movement, but Keith knows what he sees.

“Lance? Get off of me.” Keith grunts, shoving with all his might. He makes no progress, not until Lance actually backs off on his own accord, leaning back to put space between them. Lance looks panicked.

Keith pants, eyes fixed to the spot he saw his maker moments before. He sure it wasn’t an illusion. He doesn’t feel the telltale pull of his maker calling him, but maybe he’s only here to observe. To watch him from afar. To watch him with Lance.

Lance.

Keith looks up at him again, his hands still clasped together at the nape of Lance’s neck, draped around his wide shoulders. He pulls Lance into a hug, burying his face in his neck. He speaks into Lance’s skin, hopeful that he’ll be able to hear it but no one else. “Promise me something? Go home tonight. Straight home. Watch your back, get home safe.”

“Who was that man, Keith?”

“You’re making enemies by being near me.” Keith answers, his tone grim. “I’m sorry.”

Lance pulls back first, a million emotions flickering across his face in rapidfire. In the end, it settles back on that deep-embodied and all-consuming concern. Again, he’s terrified for Keith. And Keith is terrified more than ever before, knowing he disobeyed his master and got caught doing so.

“Not your fault,” Lance says finally, leaning in to press their lips together again. It’s a fleeting, chaste kiss, just a peck really, but Keith leans into it all the same. He isn’t sure when he’ll be able to do this again. If he’ll be able to. “And even if it was, you’re worth every bridge I have to burn.”

And with that, Lance pulls back again and turns to leave. He doesn’t hesitate this time, just takes off in a jog, one that quickly progresses into a sprint until his figure is just a retreating shadow disappearing into the darkness. Keith watches after him, clambering onto his feet and fighting against the dread settling in heavy for what might happen next.

If things were different… Lance would have come up to his room with him, spent the night cuddling and laughing, maybe something more. Like real, normal couples do.

His master appears beside him in a flash of movement and for a long moment, neither one of them speaks. They just stand there, staring in the direction that Lance had just left in. Keith knows he’s in big trouble, he just isn’t sure what the consequences will actually be. He’s never disobeyed before.

“He has a rather pungent odor about him, doesn’t he?” 

“I wasn’t feeding from him.” Keith says immediately, desperately, practically begging his master to believe it. He hadn’t technically bitten Lance, it wasn’t an entire lie. Just a twist of the truth.

His master’s expression stays unreadable, a perfect pokerface as always.

“I should hope not, fledgling. To disrespect our coven by stooping to such a low, that would simply be unforgivable. Under no circumstances will we ask the wolves for anything, and we certainly will never rely on their life force to sustain us, no matter how short a time.” He turns, eyes glinting with something akin to anger, the closest he’s ever expressed to Keith anyway. “We warned you once, Kogane. Stay away from the boy.”

“Understood, Sir.” Keith can’t possibly say it fast enough. He bows his head, feeling panic rise up in his chest so tangible he feels like he’s drowning in it. 

“Are you sure?” His maker hums, reaching out to place a hand atop Keith’s bowed head. Spindly, sharp nails drag through Keith’s hair in a mockery of a soothing gesture. It has Keith trembling, resisting the urge to pull away out of disgust. It isn’t right. “If you can’t find it within yourself to sever the tie on your own, I’ll have to take matters into my own hands.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“I think you should spend the next few nights at the den, fledgling.” His master says, in a way that isn’t a suggestion as much as it’s an order. He can’t be saying it as a command though, because Keith doesn’t feel the helplessness wash over him, giving him no choice but to follow. Still, for his own sake, he figures he probably should take the hint. Maybe not turning it into an order is his master’s way of testing him.

“Yes, of course.”

“Remember your roots and whom you owe this life to.”

The unspoken “ _ whom you belong to _ ” doesn’t go unheard.

\--

It’s the night of the full moon and Keith can’t shake the itch under his skin any better than a werewolf would be able to at this point. The past few days have been uncomfortable to say the least, the entire coven regarding him with wide suspicious eyes as he moves into the den for the time being. He’s never bonded with any of them, mostly choosing to keep to himself and lead the most human life he can, and times like this it really shows just how much he’s alienated himself from the other vampires.

They’re usually gathered in groups in the main rooms of the manor, practically piled on top of each other with how many of them there are. Sometimes when Keith walks past they’re just watching movies or talking, normal things, other times they’re mauling a human to death as a group or having an honest to god orgy right there in the open. After the first day of this, Keith made a point to stop glancing into the rooms as he walked past, figuring he’d seen enough.

Instead, he spent his stay in his own company. There wasn’t much to do, so he read up on ancient texts, or even cleaned when he felt particularly restless and worried about Lance. He would get on his knees in the tub and scrub the blood from between the tiles with a toothbrush, disgust settling heavier inside of himself than ever before. Maybe his master had summoned him to stay here to reconnect with his people, but it was only serving as a reminder of why he’d distanced from them.

There is no relief greater than knowing this is the last night he has to spend in this shithole.

He’s lounging across the guest bed he’s been staying in, a large four poster complete with a canopy. The sun is setting outside his window and he’s mesmerized by it, the saturated colors bleeding through the sky, deep oranges and pinks. He wonders where Lance is right now. If he’s filled with anticipation and fear for his upcoming shift. A part of Keith longs to be with him, to be able to comfort him through it.

He wishes he’d been turned into a werewolf instead. He could deal with his bones being crushed and rearranged inside of himself, if it meant avoiding all of the death and destruction that came along with being a vampire. This entire stay has done nothing but make him loathe what he is more than ever before and it eats away at him. He’s not sure how much longer he can live with himself, knowing that he’s like these people.

A knock sounds on his door and Keith curls in on himself, resisting the urge to snap at whoever is bothering him right now. He’s been brooding for hours, he would have thought anyone in the house would have taken the hint. Whatever.

“Come in.” Keith calls, though he can’t actually force his voice to sound inviting. The door opens all the same though, a stout little human woman walking into his bedroom. She’s very clearly under the spell of another vampire’s mind compulsion, her eyes empty and unseeing. Keith sighs. “What is it?”

“The master wishes to speak with you.” The woman offers a thin smile, one that shows the laugh lines in her face, and Keith feels something awful gnaw away at his stomach. He knows she probably has a family at home wondering where she is, desperately trying to find her again. He also knows she’ll probably never be allowed to come back to her own mind again, that she’ll die here. 

“Alright. Thank-you.” Keith dismisses her, rolling over to shove his face back into the pillows, breaths coming in heaving pants. He’d never been much of a crier while he was alive, he’d been the type to take things as they were and just go with the flow. Nothing ever felt permanent to him, not like this. It’s the most constricting realization, to know that he has eternity to look forward to and this is the place he has to spend it. There is no end in sight. 

It isn’t until a few minutes later that he’s stumbling through the halls of the manor and checking each room for his master, that he realizes how odd it is that he sent a messenger. He could have just summoned Keith through their bond, like he always has in the past. It doesn’t sit right with Keith.

It doesn’t help that for the first time since Keith arrived, the house is virtually empty. Other than a few mindless human slaves bustling around, there isn’t a single vampire in any of the rooms he peeks into in his search. There’s an ominous feeling in the air and he’s sure it has nothing to do with the full moon.

In the end, he finds his master outside, along with the rest of the coven.

And not just the members of the coven that normally stay at the manor, it’s the entire coven. Hundreds of vampires gathered in the backyard, all summoned for some form of meeting. Keith has only seen this once since he first got turned and he’s immediately intimidated, as he walks down the path toward the center of the large group. His master is there, chatting with some of the other eldest vampires.

“Sir? You summoned me?” Keith clears his throat roughly, tries to disguise the panic there. Slowly, his master turns around, eyes raking over him thoughtfully.

“There you are, Keith.” He offers a grin, but his fangs are extended fully, long and brittle looking, and Keith takes an instinctive step backward. It doesn’t matter though, moving backward only has him moving closer to everyone else, the surrounding crowd circling around them and moving inward. Keith doesn’t have any idea what’s happening, but he knows it can’t be good.

“Can I help you with something, Sir?”

“Don’t worry about a thing, fledgling. You’re the guest of honor tonight, we’ll be helping  _ you _ .” One of the other elders chimes in, eyes alight with something devious. Keith hates it immediately, his stomach sinking with dread. This is bad. This is very bad. 

“W-What’s going on?” Keith asks, desperation crawling high in his voice. He turns to his master, eyes wide and imploring, takes a step closer to him. Because despite it all, despite how much he loathes the man that brought him into this life, it’s still the closest thing he has to a confidant right now. He’s scared, terrified even, and his master is the only consistent and reliable person he’s met since being turned.

He steps closer to him, bottom lip trembling.

His master shushes his blubbering, reaching up to cup Keith’s face. He strokes his cheek, nails tracing along the soft skin. Keith leans into the touch despite himself, steps closer. Everyone else is whispering and laughing around them, like they know something he doesn’t. 

“Oh, Keith. My pretty boy.” His master mutters under his breath. Keith tries to take it as the compliment it’s supposed to be, tries not to feel bile rising in his chest. His master sighs, long and hard, and quietly continues for only him to hear. “Such a shame you turned out to be one of my biggest failures.”

“I don’t understand.” Keith stutters out, scrambling backward. This time, his back collides with a stranger and he yelps, looking around in search of any possible exit. There is none. He’s surrounded on all sides and the crowd just seems to be moving closer. They’re antsy, eager for what’s to come. Keith roots himself to the spot, turns back to his master. “Did I do something? Am I in trouble? What-”

“See, our bond goes two ways, Keith.” His master muses, his tone kind in a way that’s blatantly deceiving in nature. Keith stares up into those cruel eyes and he knows, in his heart, that this is the end of the short afterlife he’d known. He’s going to die. “I know where your loyalty lies and it isn’t with the coven.”

“So, what? You’re gonna kill me?”

“We could.” His master hums and haws over the option, walking in a circle around him. Keith doesn’t even bother following the movement, just stays staring dismally at the ground. There’s no fighting this, not really, even if he managed to break free of the crowd and take off running, all it would take would be one command and he’d be helplessly dragged back. “That would be the kind thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

“If you’re gonna try and torture me-”

“Really, Keith? How neanderthal do you think we are? We’re not going to bust out the whips and chains to use on you.” The man gives a little unamused chuckle, and a few of the surrounding vampires join in on it like he’s told a joke. Keith glares up at him as he circles around finally and comes to a stop in front of him again. 

“What do you want from me, then?!” Keith shouts, anger bleeding over. His master regards him with a long critical look, head tilting to the side in thought. Then, with a sickening smile, he delivers his blow.

“Find Lance. The werewolf. _ Kill him _ .”

It’s a command. 

Heavy and all-consuming and the results are instantaneous.

Keith feels the pull crawl up his spine, demanding right from the start. It’s almost instinctual, like all his body knows how to do is obey, follow orders. There is no avoiding it, no dodging the question at hand, no fighting back against the force inside of himself. It’s all-consuming. All he can think, feel, and breathe is the command he’s been given.

And it’s his own living hell.

Keith falls to his knees like he has been physically struck and not just spoken six words to. He digs his nails into the dirt underneath himself, jaw clenched tightly. Already, the pain is building up, reminding him that he has to follow through with it as soon as possible. Every second he spends doing anything else could be interpreted as disobeying. 

“W-Why?” Keith chokes out, and now he does cry, ugly tears streaking both of his cheeks. He can’t stop thinking about it, about how he would have to live with himself after murdering the person he values most in his life. He cares about Lance. He always has, but now it’s even more than that. He thinks he might even be in love with him. “Why would you  _ do this _ ?!”

“You can’t resist forever.” His maker kneels in front of him, poised and perfect, expression blank as always though his eyes give away how amusing he’s actually finding it. “Fight it as you may, at your heart you’re still a monster. Made to hunt, maim, and kill. Vampires aren’t made to love.”

“You said you didn’t want a war on your hands!” Keith shouts, anger boiling over now. It’s the first time he’s allowed himself the liberty to express an ounce of how this has all made him feel. It’s the only time he’s dared to talk back to his master, and even now it feels inherently wrong.

The man shakes his head, straightening up and standing. Keith stays where he is on the ground, his entire body locking up, searing pain shooting through his veins. His body is threatening to carry out the order with or without his consent, and he knows sooner or later his self-restraint will crumble.

“Oh, Keith. We don’t expect you to _ succeed _ .” His master takes a step back, regards him with a pitying little sigh. Realization dawns on Keith before he even speaks. The only other outcome to this that doesn’t leave Keith victorious and Lance dead. “We picked the night of the full moon for a reason.” 

“No.” Keith thrashes, slamming his head into his hands. “No, no, n-”

“Sweet, sweet Lance. All he ever wanted was to be good to you. He was so patient, so mannerly, such a good boy. He kept his distance, he knew what he was capable of. The last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt you. But Lance isn’t in control right now, is he?” The question hangs heavy in the air. Keith feels defeated, his shoulders slumping. “When you come after him tonight, all his instincts are gonna allow him to see is a vampire in need of exterminating. He’ll be beside himself when he realizes what he’s done tomorrow morning.”

Lance, with a heart of gold and nothing but loyalty to spare, always so patient and sweet. Lance who spent hours telling Keith about his family, spent months trying to get to know him and get Keith to give him the time of day. That Lance cared so much, was so full of love it threatened to spill over.

He would never be able to live with himself being a killer. 

Something about the thought of it does Keith in, has him wrenching back and launching toward his maker, fangs out and ready to fight. Needless to say, it’s a deathwish, and he’d never come out on top of the fight in a million years. He doesn’t even manage to land a single blow before the other elders grab him and wrench him away from the coven leader.

He thrashes uselessly in their hold.

“Fuck you!” 

“Now, now.” His maker takes a step back, offers up a rare smile. But it’s wrong. It looks too big for his face, like someone else plastered their own smile on him. “We aren’t totally heartless. We’re giving you a headstart. Find him before the full moon rises and you might be able to say your goodbyes.”

Keith blinks in realization.

He looks toward the sky, where the colors are slowly beginning to fade away behind the horizon. The moon is still nowhere in sight though, so he has a chance. No matter how slim. If he gets to Lance in time, before he shifts, they might be able to figure out a way to restrain Keith. He’s not sure how much control Lance will have over himself even before he goes fully wolf, but there’s a chance. There has to be.

He takes off running, pushing and shoving his way through the crowd of vampires. They’re all laughing at him, dark and ominous figures, shoving him backward for every step he manages to push forward. He keeps fighting though, growing progressively more vicious, uncaring who he shreds into with his claws as he goes. He’s snarling by the end of it, when he stumbles out of the crowd into the open field around them. 

He has no idea where to go from there, but he’ll figure it out. 

\--

In the end, Keith goes to the only person he possibly knows that might have any answers. As much as he’d love to just wander through the woods blindly, and as much as the command running through his veins demands he does just that, he’ll never find Lance that way. He has to be smart about this, both for his own sake and to carry out the order he’d been given.

He finds himself standing in the lobby area of Hunk’s apartment, finger repeatedly jabbing into the button with the last name “Garret” scribbled next to it. He’s shaking with adrenaline, desperate. The sun is still setting but it won’t be long now before it’s completely dark outside. 

Keith jabs the button for the umpteenth time, and this time the speaker crackles to live.

“Hey, um, what the fuck?” Hunk says, eloquently. In reality, Keith has only been standing there a minute, but it felt like hours and so he’d pressed the button as many times as a human would probably be able to in an entire hour. Hunk doesn’t sound impressed. 

“Where is Lance?!” Keith all but shouts into the microphone, slamming his hand against the wall for emphasis. He’s met with a whole lot of silence on the other end of the line and he lets out a quiet whine, practically a plea. Hunk makes a contemplative noise. 

“Is he in danger? Does this have something to do with the full moon?”

“W-What?” Keith stutters out in disbelief. He’d been under the impression that he’d have to be as vague as possible while visiting Hunk, careful not to give a single supernatural thing away. But Hunk just has this tired acceptance about him already, like he knows, like he’s prepped for this moment. “You  _ know _ ?”

“Keith, come on, we both know Lance, you can’t honestly tell me that you think that guy can keep a secret to save his soul, can you?” 

“How… much… do you know?” Keith trails off awkwardly, braces himself. There’s no way Hunk knows what he is and is still choosing to be his friend, no way he knows and still sits next to Keith in class every morning without feeling terrified.

“All of it. Werewolves, vampires, the mate situation, your maker being a douche.” Hunk pauses and lets out a long hum, then a laugh. “Maybe I should come downstairs and talk about this in person? It doesn’t seem like a conversation to have through a speaker.”

“No!” Keith blurts, blinking away his shock in favor of returning to the task at hand. “Hunk, I promise we’ll have this talk after tonight, assuming I live through it, but I need to know where Lance is right now.”

“Assuming you live?! What the hell is that supposed to-”

“Hunk!” Keith cries, exasperated. “Please. I need to know.”

“Why didn’t you just text me?” Hunk mutters, and Keith can hear the quiet tapping of his fingers even through the cheap speaker. A moment later, Keith’s own phone dings and he digs it out of his pocket, stares wide-eyed at the address written out for him. 

“I’m not thinking straight right now. I just need to _ go _ .”

“I understand, man.” Hunk laughs. “Freaky supernatural thing, no biggie.”

“This address is?”

“The pack leader, Shiro? That address is the house that belongs to his mate. They all meet up there to turn, it’s in the middle of the woods pretty much. You go to that house and you’ll find Lance easily enough. They don’t wander that far and they circle back a bunch throughout the night to protect their territory. Lance told me if there’s ever an emergency on the night of the full moon, that’s where he is.”

“Thanks, Hunk.” Keith breathes out in relief, for maybe the first time since his maker gave him the order and he’d taken off at supersonic speeds toward Hunk’s apartment building. “This really helps.”

“Try not to die, Keith. I rather enjoy sharing my 9am classes with you.”

“Yeah, I’ll try.” Keith smiles, turns on his heel and takes off outside without a second to waste.

\--

The address leads him to a massive log cabin in the woods, with long windows and warm light streaming through them. He can’t bring himself to knock though, even if somebody is home and could save him time. He doesn’t know how he would even phrase the question. No one in their right mind would be actively seeking out a werewolf on the night of the full moon, not unless they had a deathwish.

Instead, Keith wanders into the woods behind the house and tries to ignore the fear beginning to rise up in his throat. 

The sun has all but disappeared from the sky, especially underneath the heavy blanket of leaves and trees as Keith walks into the thick of it. There’s something unmistakably eerie about nightfall when a full moon is rising overhead. Everything seems too quiet, too heavy. There isn’t a single sound to focus on, not even the croak of frogs or the chirp of crickets. It’s dead silent.

Even when Keith focuses and tries to use his heightened sense of hearing, it’s just more of the same.

He should be hearing something, should be hearing the shift of movement somewhere, it’s a forest for god’s sake. It isn’t right, something about this isn’t settling right with him. He finds himself twisting around, trying to watch his back, the hairs along his arms beginning to stand upright. He feels like he’s being watched again, but he can’t hear anyone tailing him, not for the life of him.

Surely, if the wolves are already transformed… they’d be big enough to hear approaching?

Keith thinks back to that day in the library when Lance had effortlessly pinned his arm again and again, hardly using the full extent of his strength. He thinks back to the way Lance had trembled and growled when he tried to hold himself back that night outside his dorms, afraid of hurting Keith. 

Now more than ever, Keith is painstakingly aware of the damage Lance is probably capable of doing to him. He knows he doesn’t have much chance of surviving the night.

In the distance, he can hear the steady trickle of flowing water and he heads toward that. The river is nice, waist-deep, clear blue water that has Keith staring at his own reflection in the moonlight. God, the moon is almost completely up now. He’s too late. He knows he must be.

He turns, his fate hanging heavy over his head, prepared to wander blindly through the woods until he meets it…

No sooner has he turned around than does he find himself pinned to the ground, body twisted uncomfortably, limbs bent in every which angle. He cries out in equal parts surprise and pain.

“Who are you?” A gruff voice demands, a deep growl following the words that’s far simpler for Keith’s panic-addled mind to understand. His eyes widen and he attempts to look back over his shoulder, but a hand settles on his head and presses his face into the dirt with more force. “Answer me!”

“Keith! I’m Keith!”

“Vampire.” The man throws the word back at him like a slur. Keith cowers weakly. “What do you want?”

“Lance.” Keith croaks, where the pressure bearing down on his back is making it hard to breathe, hard to form a single word. He twists his fingers uselessly, desperately trying to get an arm underneath himself, literally anything that might help push him off the ground. But the weight on top of him is unforgiving, a solid wall of muscle. 

With a huff, the weight slowly disappears and Keith immediately spins around, crab-walking across the grass to put space between them. He looks up and gapes at the massive silhouette of the man in front of him. The very muscular, very naked man. But hey, at least it isn’t a wolf! Which has to mean that Lance isn’t-

“Come with me.” The man gestures for him to follow and Keith does, head hanging low. He isn’t sure how this is going to go when he sees Lance and every part of him instantly screams at him to go for the throat, but he’ll take that as it comes. He knows he won’t be able to do any damage, not if Lance has an entire pack of people that strong backing him up. They could break Keith easily. It was a wonder that man hadn’t.

As they walk, he notices little giveaways that the man in front of him is being affected strongly by the pull of the moon. His hands are clawed, where they trace along the seam of his jeans, like they’re aching to sink into something else. At every minute shift or sound from the woods, his entire body whips around like he’s ready to pounce. And every now and then, he’ll glance back to make sure Keith is still following, and his eyes are completely yellow pools. Animal. Wolf.

They walk out into a clearing and Keith is immediately hit with the sensation of eyes watching him, of being so severely outnumbered it isn’t even funny. He cowers a bit behind the initial stranger, as twenty pairs of eyes turn to stare at him, size him up as prey.

The other thing is… these people are… underdressed compared to the first guy. 

And by that, Keith means they’re completely and utterly naked.

So, even if he wasn’t completely intimidated by them to the point of being too fearful to look them in the eye, he would probably still make a point not to look up from the ground. He definitely feels out of place among them, like he’s walked into something he couldn’t begin to understand. He’s an intruder in their space, their safe space, and he probably deserves whatever he has coming to him at this point.

“Lance!” 

“I’m kinda busy right now, I’m doing my pre-shift stretches.” Lance singsongs back, in that same carefree voice as always, so blissfully oblivious to the threat circling him like a hawk. Because that’s what Keith is right now, a predator familiarizing themselves with their prey, with the easiest way to get at them. 

Now that he can follow the sound of Lance’s voice, Keith wastes no time getting to him. He speeds away from the stranger that had been guiding him, using the full extent of his vampire powers to get to Lance’s side as quickly as possible. Everything is secondary to the goal at hand, and the goal is to wrench the life out of the person he cares about more than anyone else on this Earth. 

The second he lays eyes on Lance, butt-naked and stretched out in the grass to work his back muscles, he can’t help himself. He soars forward and lands on top of him with a hiss, fangs already out and ready to sink in. He doesn’t manage so much as a nip. He’s fast, but Lance is effortlessly faster and dodges just in time to avoid him.

Keith whips around, ready to launch another attack. His mind is a constant chorus of terrible thoughts, of Lance’s bloodied and lifeless body, and all the ways to make it a reality.

Something in Lance’s instincts must have flared up after being attacked though, because his guard is certainly up now. Before Keith can even move toward him, he finds himself slammed into the trunk of a nearby tree face-first. His face beads up in bloodied scratches and he whines, working his jaw where the impact likely broke it. It sets back into place easily enough.

That’s the least of his concerns with Lance pressed up close behind him though, growling in his ear, very clearly unimpressed with him. It goes beyond annoyance, straight into fury. Lance’s grip on his wrists is menacing, enough to have those werewolf claws sinking into his flesh and spilling even more blood. 

He leans in even closer behind Keith, breathes out a heavy exhale across the nape of his neck. Keith thrashes against his hold, he can’t help it, every part of him is screaming to get loose and carry out the order he’d been given. It’s the wrong thing to do, he knows he should be staying as still as possible to placate the beast, should be the image of submission.

He can’t help it though, he needs to fulfill the task he’d been given. At any cost.

Lance snaps at him when he gets too squirmy, with those sharp rows of canine-like teeth that occupy his mouth now. Keith cries out in pain, cowers as Lance bites down on the nape of his neck. It’s fleeting, his jaw doesn’t stay locked there for more than an instant, but the pain is  _ searing _ . He can’t take it.

“H-Hey, wait, Lance.” Keith tries, his fangs digging into his bottom lip in the effort to keep from snarling his words. He closes his eyes tight, tries to concentrate. They don’t have much time left before Lance shifts and he needs to make the most of it. “It’s me, Keith. Don’t kill me. You know me. You love me. I think, I don’t know, you haven’t said it but I think you d-”

“What are you  _ doing  _ here?” Lance grits out, but it’s strained, like he has to fight through his baser instincts to keep the conversation going. From where Keith’s pressed, he can see some of the other werewolves gathering around, at the ready to defend their own. Their eyes are all narrowed and angry, ready to tear Keith apart more than ever now that he’s tried to hurt Lance.

“Trying to kill you.” Keith admits, straight to the point. On cue, the other werewolves light up in a chorus of growls. The original stranger, the one that had found Keith in the woods, steps closer and leans against the tree. He stares Keith down, silently demanding answers.

“You’re doing a shit job.” Lance’s voice is breathy, and he’s clearly struggling to control himself. It’s scary even now, when Lance hasn’t transformed yet. Keith knows that he’s a sitting duck out here, that if they’re this tense around him already, as wolves they won’t hesitate to devour him. Lance seems to be thinking along the same trail of thought. “I could fucking break you in half right now. Why would you choose now to-”

“My maker. He ordered me to. Punishment for getting close to you.” Keith says hurriedly, his eyes beginning to sting with unshed tears. “I don’t want to, but I can’t fucking fight it, Lance. I can’t-”

“It’s okay, baby, I can hold you back easy.” Lance seems to be aiming for something reassuring, but that’s not how it lands as he presses his face into the curve of Keith’s neck. Keith continues trying to fight his grip, but it’s no use. He’s forced to stand there and take whatever Lance has coming to him. He squeezes his eyes shut, prepares for another bite, and instead… gets a kiss pressed to his jugular.

The stranger leaning against the tree beside him scoffs and turns away, shaking his head in obvious annoyance. Keith stares hopelessly after him for answers.

One playful kiss turns into more, and before Keith can fully comprehend what’s happening, Lance is mouthing at his neck with enough force to leave marks behind (and vampires don’t bruise easily). He’s almost too into it, slobbering and drooling over the skin not unlike a dog, all teeth and tongue. It’s messy and impatient, but it isn’t painful. It isn’t even really rough as much as it’s just… eager.

“Lance?” Keith squeaks finally, embarrassment rising high in his cheeks as he feels Lance step closer to him, slot their bodies together. Lance is hard. Keith can feel it through his pants, the thick outline of a cock against his ass, rutting indiscreetly into the line between his cheeks.

“Sorry, can’t help myself around you.” The apology hardly sounds heartfelt with a snicker tacked onto the end of it. Lance is amused, as he rocks their bodies together with a little bit more force, humping against Keith’s ass where it’s pressed out behind him. Lance groans, low and sultry, right against the shell of Keith’s ear and that’s the final straw that finally has him snapping.

“What the hell are you doing?! There are people watching us, you fucking dog!” Keith tries to twist his way out of Lance’s hold again, but is met with more resistance, and a particularly hard thrust forward as punishment. It sends him scrambling, until he’s pressed flat against the tree and Lance is crowding him up against the hard surface. Absentmindedly, Keith registers the friction against his own cock, the way his body slides against the hard tree each time Lance’s naked hips snap forward against his.

“You walked into my den, poked the sleeping bear with the stick, and now you’re gonna get what you fucking asked for. What you’ve  _ been _ asking for.” Lance tells him, a smile audible behind the words, a smug air around him that’s all too familiar even in this context. Lance kisses his cheek, lewdly, with a wet smack as he pulls away. “I’m gonna make you my bitch.”

A shiver runs down Keith’s spine at the promise.

“Are you serious right now?! I just told you I’m brainwashed to kill you and-”

“We’ve got probably thirty minutes until I start shifting for real.” Lance muses, mostly for his own benefit if Keith could guess. His hands wander down the shape of Keith’s hips, to toy with his belt buckle idly. It’s almost taunting. “I wonder how many times I can make you come.”

With that, Lance gets his jeans undone just enough to slip a hand inside and grip his cock. Keith goes rigid, has to bite down on his tongue just to keep from crying out. Lance isn’t slow about it, doesn’t give him any time to relax into it or work up to the touch. He’s fast right from the start, fingers tracing up and down the length of Keith’s cock. Unforgiving about it.

“L-Lance! Stop it!” Keith pleads, but it falls on deaf ears. Lance is honed in on him now, notices all the obvious giveaways of Keith’s body giving in to the pleasure. Even as he twists and thrashes to get loose, to do damage, to kill… his cock can’t lie, can’t hide the way it twitches and leaks into Lance’s soft hands, begging for more. But Keith can’t indulge in this, he can’t, not knowing the risk. “We have to figure out a plan! You have to hold me back, tie me up, anything to make sure I don’t hurt you or you don’t hurt me.”

“Why would I hurt you?” Lance scoffs, but his hand stops moving to allow himself a chance to think on the conversation. It gives Keith a chance to catch his breath, to come back to himself. “I thought we just established that I love you, dumbass.”

Keith’s breath catches.

The way Lance says it is almost an afterthought, like they’ve been a couple for years and it comes as second nature at this point, it’s easy. There’s no hang-ups, no debating with himself, not even a shred of hesitation before the words spill easily past his lips just like the rest of the sentence. It’s completely heartfelt, Keith knows it is. When Lance is like this, he doesn’t have it in him to play mind games. He’s reduced to his simpler wants, his simpler thoughts and feelings.

And one of those is loving Keith.

Which, in itself, would be an overwhelming confession. Pair it with the fact that Keith has to be the responsible one, has to take into account the situation they’re in and how temporary his chance to bask in it actually is… it’s a lot to handle. Keith feels heavy with the weight of it.

“You’ve been holding yourself back from doing it all week, Lance.” Keith whispers, a defeated undertone to the words as he admits them aloud. It’s gone unsaid, Lance probably too proud to admit that’s what was really going on, but they both knew. There’s no point of staying in denial now, there’s nothing left to deny. They’re out of time. “Your instincts. Werewolves hate vampires. You’re gonna lose control-”

“Is that really what you thought?” 

“Um, yeah?” Keith tries, unsure if this is meant to be a trick question or not. 

The laugh he earns in response should set him on edge, but Lance’s laughter has only ever relaxed him.

“I’ve never wanted to kill you.” Lance whispers, his voice so much deeper than Keith is used to. The arousal is pooling in each word, makes every sentence sound obnoxiously sultry. “I wanted to _ fuck  _ you, Keith. This whole time. I mean, I wanted it to be soft and gentle, roses and candlelight, loving even. But when I’m like this,  _ fuck _ , all I wanna do is shove you into the dirt and wipe that fucking smirk off your face. I wanna make you beg for it. You’ve spent so long stringing me along, shoving it in my face, making me drool over it. It’s _ your _ turn to suffer. I wanna make you _ cry _ .”

“Oh.” Keith breathes out, cheeks aflame.

Lance must feel it when Keith’s cock gives a weak interested twitch where it’s drooling into his palm, because then he starts to touch Keith again. He’s slower about it now, really just squeezing and rubbing at the head of Keith’s erection, rubbing his thumb against where he’s leaking like a faucet.

“Baby, look at me, do I look like a killer?” Lance laughs, low and throaty, and his pointed teeth glint a sparkling white in the moonlight. Long tan fingers grip Keith’s jaw, the points of Lance’s claws digging gently into his skin, just enough pressure to be grounding. Lance turns Keith’s head to face him, makes eye contact properly for the first time tonight.

The thing is, up until that moment Keith had still been clinging to the very real fear that Lance didn’t have a sweet clue what he was talking about and was just saying whatever would get him into Keith’s pants the fastest. But when their eyes meet, it’s like Keith can see through the animal on plain display, see through to Lance’s usual calming blue underneath. There’s recognition there, a sense of control even now with the moon rising overhead. It’s still Lance, just… more intense than Keith has ever known him.

But… it’s still Lance. And Lance would never hurt him.

Lance smiles at him, leans forward to press their mouths together in a gentle kiss. It’s soft and almost exploratory, like Lance is memorizing Keith for the very first time. If anything, it’s more controlled than their actual first kiss had been, as Lance takes his sweet time familiarizing himself with every taste and sound he can pull out of the body in front of him.

It quickly grows rough, as the command takes over and Keith’s body tries to fight against his mind, tries to do damage to the minimal parts of Lance he can reach. He bites at his lips, at his tongue, fangs extended and nipping blindly at any skin they can reach. Lance just laughs though, like it’s a puppy biting at him and not a vampire that’d be capable of tearing him apart any other time. Right now though, he doesn’t even flinch.

And Keith is left lapping up the blood from the wounds, completely distracted in an instant. He moans and whimpers as he sucks it up, laps at it greedily. Desperate for it. 

Somehow, the command takes a backseat to the taste of Lance’s blood, like it always does.

Eventually, Lance seems to tire of letting Keith suck at his skin like a leech, pulls back to wink at him. It’s an ominous sort-of thing, seeing that intent displayed plainly in those dark eyes, animal in nature. Keith braces himself for it before he even knows what it is, his guess proving accurate when Lance’s hands dip between them to grab at the back pockets of Keith’s jeans.

With a horrific rip, the denim gives easily against the weight of Lance’s claws, tears away from Keith’s body in long shreds of fabric. He gasps as the cool air hits his bare skin, realizes belatedly that Lance had sliced his boxers into pieces as well, somehow without managing to so much as nick Keith.

“Only thing I’m going to be mauling to death tonight is your cute little ass.” Lance sighs, grabbing two hefty handfuls of said ass and toying with them. He lands a couple playful smacks to each cheek, giggling with delight as he leans back to admire his work. “Look at the way it  _ jiggles _ !”

“Stop it!” 

“Aw, but baby, you don’t understand. You haven’t seen the view from where I’m standing. How am I supposed to say no to this?” Lance accentuates by slapping Keith’s ass again, this time with more force, enough to leave his skin smarting. He shivers slightly, ducks his head low between his arms, stares down at the ground, down at where the outline of his own cock is blatantly obvious in his jeans. 

Taking that as permission to continue, Lance takes his sweet time playing with Keith’s ass, smacking it over and over again, until Keith has to grit his teeth so hard he feels like his fangs might shatter under the pressure. His skin feels raw and overused already, and he feels like Lance has hardly gotten started. He can only imagine how red it is now, a stark contrast to how pale he is everywhere else.

Vaguely, he worries about the time limit they have, wonders how many minutes they have left.

“If it makes you feel any better, my first instinct when I caught scent of you was definitely to tear you apart three ways from Sunday.” A voice from Keith’s right speaks up, the opposite direction from the way his body’s bent. If he twists just a bit further, he can just barely make out a flash of long blonde hair and a smiling face. Keith flushes in embarrassment as he remembers the state he’s in, squirms to try and avoid Lance’s wandering hands. It’s a futile battle though, Lance has him exactly where he wants him, is toying with him like a cat with a mouse. 

The woman steps around to stand behind Lance, rests her chin on his shoulder. Her eyes rake over Keith’s face now that they can see each other properly, yellow eyes glinting with intrigue. “Lance’s wires have always been a little crossed when it comes to you, though. I think it’s because he’s had a crush on you since long before you got turned into a vampire.”

“W-What?” Keith blurts, looking to Lance for confirmation. He’s dutifully ignoring the conversation though, eyes glued to where he’s working Keith’s ass in his hands, groping and squeezing at his cheeks, spreading them to rub his cock between. “I didn’t even know you sophomore year, we didn’t talk until you sniffed me out and called me a vampire at the start of  _ this  _ year?”

“You smelled different. Didn’t like it. Worried about you.” Lance grunts out, hips thrusting forward with a preciseness that’s uncanny, has his cock gliding easily between Keith’s ass cheeks, smearing pre-cum along the base of his spine. Keith catches himself pressing back into it, arching his back before he can stop himself, and the next slide home has Lance’s cockhead dragging over his rim where it’s twitching uselessly against the cool night air. 

They both moan in unison, Lance’s pace picking up until he’s clawing at Keith’s hips, a low growl vibrating in his chest constantly. 

“Before that he just observed you wistfully from afar.” The girl adds, breaking Keith out of the fog of lust enough to remember that he’s in public, a crowd of twenty people or more gathered around and able to see the state he’s in with a simple glance in their direction. He clamps down on his tongue, refuses to let out another embarrassing noise, even as Lance’s pace grows to something possessive, his hands pulling Keith’s ass back against his cock each thrust. 

“Shut the fuck up, Romelle, can’t you see that nobody wants you here?” Lance bites out then, turning to pull his upper lip back into a snarl, directed at the woman. She blinks at him, hardly bothered by it, and then moves to lean against the tree Keith’s body is being pushed against. She grins at Keith, that same mischievous look in her eyes that Keith has grown to loathe and love in equal amounts.

“He spends every full moon glued to your front door like a little guard dog. It’s so cute.”

“Seriously, Romelle?!” Lance doesn’t sound angry now as much as he sounds whiny, like a middle schooler getting their crush revealed. Keith catches himself huffing out a laugh between punched-out gasps, a lazy smile stretching across his lips as he glances back at Lance. He looks… flustered. Almost shy about it. 

“This wasn’t the first full moon you did that?” Keith teases, eyes lidded.

“Nope, he’s been at it for months.” The woman, Romelle, giggles. She can’t be much older than the two of them, just enough to rub it in and gloat over it if the way she’s treating Lance says anything. He glowers at her as she shifts closer, drops a hand lightly to Keith’s shoulder where it’s trembling like a leaf in a windstorm. Her fingers spread apart, dip lower, until she’s cupping Keith’s pec and pinching at his nipple through the thin t-shirt he’s still wearing. “You gonna knot him?”

Keith doesn’t even register what happens, only hears the very dog-like yelp of pain that follows.

“Get your filthy fucking hands off. He’s  _ mine _ .” Lance roars, toward the emptiness where Romelle had been standing moments before. She’s gone now, disappeared into the crowd, and Keith thinks he might catch a glimpse of her nursing the wound on her face before she’s completely out of sight. Lance is still snarling, spitting and panting, seething with rage. Keith goes very, very still, holds his breath and looks behind his shoulder to stare at Lance with wide eyes.

He watches as Lance slowly comes back to himself, eyes blinking into something slightly more human. He watches as Lance draws his hand back to lick the blood from his claws. And once he’s finished doing that, Keith watches as Lance turns back to him with an apologetic smile. Sheepish.

“Hey, Red.” Lance smiles at him, close-mouthed and kind. He leans in, noses along the side of Keith’s face, peppers light kisses across his skin. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to spook you.”

“It’s okay. I know you can’t help it.” Keith tells him, steels his nerves and tries to calm himself. He knows Lance would never do that to him, was only trying to protect him. It’s still the slightest bit unnerving though, every reminder of the unharnessed strength behind him right now is. Lance really could break him in half, he knows he could. He just has to trust that he won’t.

“My sweet, sweet boy.” Lance coos, but Keith is paying more attention to the background noise behind the words. A slick, slick motion that repeats itself more times than he can count with every passing second. It’s unmistakable, he’s heard the sound enough times himself to know. He twists around to look behind himself, down the line of his back as best he can, gulps when his eyes land on the prize.

Lance is jerking himself off behind Keith’s ass, poised to come all over it.

That’s not the part that has Keith doing a double-take. No, he finds himself staring at the base of Lance’s cock, or the few glimpses at it he manages to catch each time Lance’s hand glides to the tip instead. At the very base of that long, straining cock… there’s a knob. It’s sort of like a bulge under the skin, round and red, looks uncomfortable with how it stretches out there.

“What the fuck is  _ that _ ?”

“My knot.” Lance grunts out, reluctantly pauses the rapid movements of his hand to show it off, very obviously proud. Keith feels like his eyes can’t possibly go any wider as he stares, blatantly and unabashedly because he can’t bring himself to be discreet. He’s… startled, to say the least.

“W-What?”

“Well, I could explain via demonstration easiest, but if you would rather I tell you…” Lance sighs, almost like he’s disappointed. His hand that isn’t wrapped around himself drops down between them, slides between Keith’s cheeks and trails lower. Keith gasps when Lance slips the tip of his finger inside of him, just barely enough to feel. Lance chuckles then, goes back to jerking himself off with his other hand, chokes out an explanation between his moans. “It slides right in here when I finish, sits heavy and full just inside your rim, keeps my cock plugged inside of you. Don’t want any of my cum to drip out before my bitch ends up bred, yeah?”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“It’s all yours, baby.” Lance tells him, biting his lip as he runs his hand over himself a few times. He stops at the base, wraps his fingers around the slight bulge at the base and massages it, rubs and squeezes at it until he’s letting out these breathy little grunts of approval. Keith relaxes before he can stop himself, feels his own cock throb in interest. 

“Is it getting bigger?” Keith finds himself asking, eyes wide as he watches Lance touch himself.

“You want it?” Lance asks, the question phrased like he already knows the answer. Keith pales, but he can’t deny the way his eyes linger, the way a sick temptation is pulling at him. He wants to touch, wants to familiarize himself with Lance’s body, wants to taste. He isn’t sure if it’s safe for him to, but oh, how he wants to. He could probably pull it off, if he was that close to Lance’s blood... it might be enough to distract him from the command. 

He yelps when Lance’s hand settles in his hair, grips it tight and yanks his head up to look him in the eye again. Keith pants open-mouthed into the space between their faces, a whine crawling up the back of his throat, high and needy. “I know you do, whore. I can smell it on you. Just like in the library.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“You like it, though.” Lance accuses, tone playful and light. Keith can’t bring himself to look directly at Lance again, but he nods slowly all the same, cheeks aflame with shame. It’s the right thing to do, he knows that much immediately, as Lance lets out a long pleased hum. Contemplative.

And then his hands settle on Keith’s shoulders, gripping tight.

“What are you-” Keith doesn’t get to finish asking the question, Lance’s grip on his shoulders tightening and then spinning him around so they’re facing each other. Keith’s back hits the tree with a thud, his head still spinning with the speed of the position shift when Lance is suddenly  _ on him _ . He’s pressed up against Keith’s front, their cocks slotting together, pressed tightly between their stomachs. 

Lance gives him this coy look from just the short few inches between their faces, and then ever so slowly… tilts his head to the side. His eyelashes flutter.

“Go ahead.” Lance whispers invitingly, something dangerous sparking in his eyes. It’s electric, tension charged so quickly that Keith feels like a coil drawn too tight, ready to spring. Lance must feel it too, shows it in the slope of his smirk, the heat in his eyes. “Bite me. Drink up. I’ve wanted you to do this for fucking ever. Every time I see those cute little fangs, I think about what they’ll feel like slicing into my neck. So sexy. I want you to devour me, baby. Take me apart.”

Keith really,  _ really _ does not need to be told twice.

He hauls back and sinks his filthy fucking fangs right in, bites down right into where Lance’s pulse is jackhammering with pulsing blood. Lance gives a startled gasp, borderline a pained noise, but it quickly filters out into a desperate moan that reverberates through his whole body. Keith can _ feel  _ the noise, feel the way Lance’s throat vibrates around his mouth.

The blood pours into his mouth, washes over his tongue like an oncoming wave. It’s the taste of iron, of human musk and life itself, it’s the strength and power of a werewolf at their peak… but more than any of that, it’s the taste of  _ Lance _ . And even though he’s had a few fleeting teases at what that means, Keith is drowning in it now. Everything he knows, everything he is, everything he’s capable of thinking and feeling… it’s all reduced to _ Lance  _ in that moment. Lance, Lance, Lance-

Keith bites down harder, gets his hands on Lance’s hips and drags him in closer, gets a better angle that has the blood coursing into his mouth more evenly. He sucks it up like he’s dying for it, like every last drop is imperative, like this is the most valuable thing he’s ever had and he’d be a fool to pass up on even the smallest taste. He’s giddy with it, obsessed even.

Never in Keith’s life has he desired something so wholly and so deeply.

What starts out as borderline worshipping quickly becomes something greedier. Keith has fed fairly recently, he really doesn’t need to take that much to sate his bloodlust, but his lust for Lance is a hole that can’t possibly be filled, it’s never-ending and all-encompassing. So even when he’s had his fill, when the hunger is gone and all that’s left is the enjoyment, Keith keeps drinking.

If anything, he drinks more insistently. He’s messy with it, dragging his teeth and tongue up and down Lance’s neck, littering more bites across his skin in an effort to find more blood where it might be stronger. He smears red across his face, across Lance’s tan skin, across his teeth until they’re dripping with it. And then he drinks more. More, more, more. He’ll  _ never  _ have enough. He’ll  _ never  _ be full.

Lance had told him to devour his body, and devour Keith  _ will _ . 

“That’s enough! You’re gonna hurt him.” A gruff growl cuts into the haze of Keith’s thoughts, and then there’s a hand in his hair and pulling hair enough to tear a handful out if Keith doesn’t lean back to follow the pull. He does, detaching from Lance’s neck with an unimpressed hiss. Blood drips down his chin, down the length of his own neck, saturates the collar of his shirt. Keith licks his lips, savoring the last of what he’s being offered, glares up at the man holding his head back from taking more.

It’s the stranger from before. Keith’s eyes widen.

“I’m _ fine _ , Shiro. Stop hovering.” Lance snaps, hand swatting flimsily through the air. Shiro doesn’t look impressed, but he reluctantly lets go of Keith and takes a step back. Now that Keith is pleasantly full and tingly, so hyped up on fresh blood (and werewolf blood at that), he can sort-of see how he was being a bit greedy with his feeding. Lance does look a little pale, a little exhausted.

“I’m sorry. I won’t hurt him.” Keith says hurriedly, looking toward Shiro. He can’t explain it exactly, but something about the air that Shiro carries himself with has Keith wanting to bow his head and cower next to him. It’s intimidating, the level of confidence, how self-assured he is. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“Just be more gentle in the future, that’s all.” Shiro relents, his expression softening into something a little bit less disappointed. Lance grumbles under his breath, keeps shooting glares in Shiro’s direction for intruding on their moment. “Alright, alright, I’ll leave you two alone. Screw me for doing my job as Alpha and looking out for my pack.”

Lance watches him go with a glare, even has the gall to stick his tongue out in his direction once his back is turned. Shiro turns around suddenly and catches him doing it too, just gives him the fondest look of exasperation that Keith has ever seen, and then disappears into the trees to leave them on their own again.

Keith can’t…  _ imagine _ treating a superior like that.

He doesn’t have much time to ponder on it though, his eyes darting back to Lance and taking in the state he’s in. His entire neck is bloodied, the substance drying against his skin. There are trails of it that dipped down into his collarbones and pooled there. Keith feels a pang of shame now. Partially for being greedy, but more for being so wasteful. He may never get an opportunity like that again and he’d gone and wasted an entire mouthful.

Idiot. Idiot. Id-

“Feels kinda good, doesn’t it?” Lance giggles, reaching up to drag his fingertips through the mess of blood, trace patterns in it almost absentmindedly. Keith blinks, eyes widening. This entire time, he’d been so lost in himself, he hadn’t even thought to pay attention to Lance’s reactions. He glances down between them, swallows when he sees that Lance is still very much hard and leaking against his stomach. If anything, his cock is twitching and pulsing more now, like he could come from just a few quick strokes. “We’re definitely gonna have to do that again.”

Those words certainly catch Keith’s attention, bring him back to himself real fast.

“Yeah?” Keith asks, looking back up to meet Lance’s gaze. He can’t hide the excitement at the potential offering any better than he can hide how hard he is, swollen and leaking in his jeans. Lance gives him a fond look, leans in to kiss him on the lips, short and fleeting, barely a peck. But still, when he leans back, his lips are tinted red with blood. God, Keith must have been messy with it.

“Are you kidding? Hell yeah, baby.” Lance laughs, reaches up to brush his hair back. “That was like… the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced. Nearly came just from that alone.”

Keith looks down between them again, eyes Lance’s cock. The knot at the base is definitely bigger now, swollen and pulsing. Keith flushes, the fresh blood rising back to the surface. Slowly, he reaches forward, now that his arms aren’t restrained. He gets a hand around Lance, runs it gentle from base to tip, smears the pre-cum down the length of it. To the root.

His touch is gentle at first, uncertain. He isn’t sure how to handle it, can only attempt to replicate how he saw Lance touching himself earlier, but that’d been a blur. He wraps his whole hand around the knot, applies just the barest amount of pressure and  _ squeezes _ -

“Fuck!” Lance shouts, hips bucking forward uselessly against the touch, trying in vain to plunge himself deeper. Keith licks his lips, narrows his eyes in determination. He uses both hands now, rubs Lance off between his palms, applies more pressure as he massages at the hard flesh. He ducks his head, spits a long string of saliva that drips down and hits right on target, aids the movement of his hands into something much slicker and smoother.

Lance is… out of his mind with it.

He has his head tipped back, jaw hanging slack so he can’t even begin to swallow back the groans and grunts of approval, eyes screwed shut against the sensation. 

“Lance, hey, pay attention.”

“What?”

“I want you to fuck me with it.” Keith says, squeezes his hands around Lance’s knot for emphasis, just in case the memo is lost on the lust-fueled boy in front of him. Lance blinks a few times, seems to really register the words a few seconds later. A wolfish grin envelopes his entire face. 

He gets his hands under Keith’s thighs in an instant, hoists him up into the air and presses him back against the tree, holds him there. Spread open and pinned that way, at just the right height for Lance to shove his cock inside if he so pleased. 

“God, I fucking love you.” Lance exclaims, kissing all over Keith’s neck, sloppy and clumsy with it in his eagerness. His hands on Keith’s thighs are firm and solid, keeping them spread as wide as they’ll go as they’re held in the air. It’s such a casual show of strength, of physical prowess, and still it has Keith’s heart fluttering with anticipation. He brings his hands up and wraps them around Lance’s neck, figures he’ll probably need to hold on for what’s coming next.

“Mmf-” Keith gasps, the air stolen out of his lungs as Lance crashes their mouths together. As they kiss, Lance gets a hand down between them and makes quick work of obliterating what remains of Keith’s jeans, shredding until there’s tatters of denim floating through the air all around them and Keith’s heavy cock is left fully on display. Immediately, Lance grabs it, jerks it off hard and fast. “Ah, hahh, ahh-”

“Aw, look at it.” Lance says, followed by a quiet huff. “A pretty little cock for my pretty little bitch.” 

“Stop messing around! We only have so much time.” Keith reminds him. It’s meant to sound scolding, but it reaches closer to desperation. Now that he’s made up his mind about wanting this, he’ll do anything to make sure he gets to have it. He needs it so badly.

He reaches up and tugs his shirt over his head, tosses it aside.

“I know, baby, don’t worry.” Lance relents, drops his hand from Keith’s cock and reaches down to himself instead. He steps closer, lines the head of his cock up with Keith’s rim and teasingly swipes it back and forth, spreads his pre-cum over where Keith is twitching and tensing, body trying to pull him in despite being nowhere near prepared for it. Lance snickers at it, amused by how Keith’s body betrays him by acting slutty without his consent. “I’ll take care of you.”

“Please.” The word falls from Keith’s lips before he can stop it, but he can’t bring himself to regret it when it immediately kicks Lance into action. His teasing forgotten, Lance pops his fingers into his mouth and sucks on them until they’re soaked with saliva. Then he reaches down and slips one into Keith, gentle about it even with the impatience sizzling beneath the surface. 

Keith isn’t human though, doesn’t need anywhere near the slow stretching that he might without the powers of super healing. He doesn’t need thorough and gentle stretching, he just needs a few fingers shoved in his ass and then pulled free, just enough to get the muscle of his rim used to working open for a cock. Lance is still careful with him though, works his way up to three fingers and then four, and then-

“What the hell are you doing now?!” Keith seethes silently, as Lance shoves his fifth finger inside and Keith feels just the barest burn of pain from the stretch. It’s gone as quickly as it’d appeared though, and he’s left feeling only the pleasant tingle of being incredibly full. Lance just looks at him, a single quirked eyebrow and teeth digging into his bottom lip.

“Honey… I don’t think you realize how big I am.” Lance presses his fingers tightly together, then carefully spreads them apart. Keith whimpers, rocks back against the intrusion as Lance’s hand slips in another inch, past the widest part of his knuckles. He doesn’t sink in any further than that though, doesn’t sink his hand into Keith’s body up to the wrist. He just pulls his hand free again, gets another handful of spit and reaches back down to rub it into Keith’s hole. “I’m just trying to be thorough.”

“I’m a vampire, I can take a little pain.” Keith snaps at him.

“Ever think that maybe I don’t  _ want _ it to hurt, Keith?” Lance rolls his eyes, like that much should be blatantly obvious. “I want to make you feel  _ good _ .”

Keith is tempted to tell him that he’s so horny at this point that anything up his ass would feel good, that he’s so desperate to be filled that he’d take the pain with the pleasure and drink it down as one deeply satisfying cocktail. He wants. So feverishly and desperately. He needs. So badly that his skin crawls with it. He’ll do anything to get fucked right now, preferably by the massive cock that keeps brushing against his inner thigh, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Eventually, Lance relents with his “thorough” stretching and lines himself up. 

He slides home into Keith’s body with one smooth roll of his hips, pressing the length of his cock inside at just the right angle to brush against Keith’s prostate on the first thrust in. It’s not fair. There’s no way Lance can be that naturally good at this, he won’t believe it. He doesn’t want to believe that Lance really has a right to be as cocky and smug as he is about sex. But oh god, how the evidence speaks for itself.

It’s like Lance just inherently knows exactly how to touch Keith to work him up, to get him keyed up and desperate, to have him relaxing into the feeling of being fucked so quickly that they bypass the awkward stage at the beginning entirely. Right from the start, Lance’s hands are exploring his nipples, teasing his cock, scratching at his thighs. Lance’s mouth is at his neck, his jaw, his lips. Everywhere and everything he is is once again reduced to Lance and this time it doesn’t even have anything to do with blood.

It’s a more human sort-of sensation, a baser instinct than even feeding for a vampire.

Keith wants to get off. Lance is gonna help him get there. Simple.

Lance fucks him steadily, keeps up the flex and grind of his hips inside of Keith’s body even as he squirms round. The position isn’t ideal, as hot as it is having Lance keep him lifted and pinned against a tree, legs hanging weakly on either side of Lance’s hips. It’s just the slightest bit uncomfortable, and doesn’t give him any leverage at all to fuck back against the cock in his ass and take it how he really wants to.

He’s forced to let Lance control things, set the pace and take him apart as leisurely as he so pleases.

And, for the first few minutes, Lance pleases to do things as leisurely as possible. He’s almost lazy about it, the way he drags his cock in and out, from base to tip, making Keith agonize over every single inch pulling and pushing against his rim. It’s all Keith can do to grit his teeth, to keep from begging for more and giving Lance exactly what he wants.

He has to wait and be patient like a good boy, until Lance’s own control wanes and slips away from him with due time. Lance has impressive stamina, probably a wolf thing. So despite all their buildup and teasing to get to this point, he keeps perfect control over himself. It’s driving Keith insane.

“Fuck me!”

“I am fucking you.”

“No, really fuck me! Hard!”

“Don’t be pushy, Keith.” Lance tells him with a smirk, his voice taking on that teasing edge that drives Keith moderately insane every single time he hears it. This time is no different. He’s suddenly got his nails digging into Lance’s back, slicing and clawing at it, uncaring toward the damage he might cause. Lance will heal too, he’s not made of glass either. Keith wants to fuck like animals, isn’t sure how else to express that other than acting like one.

“Come on, Lance, you can do me better than this.” Keith goads, looks up at Lance through heavily hooded eyes. He reaches up, pinches at his own nipples, rolls and rubs them between his fingertips. Lance’s yellow eyes follow the movement, honed in on every shift. 

“Be patient.” Lance growls, averting his eyes. But Keith can feel it, the way his hips have started to rock forward just that slightest bit faster. Keith knows he has him almost where he needs him. They’re just about there…

“I thought you were gonna give me your knot, huh? What’s the matter? Can’t get it up?” Keith jokes, maybe a little cruelly, but Lance near the full moon is never above a challenge. His eyes go dark with intent and he lets out a deep rumbling growl. That’s the only warning Keith gets.

Suddenly, Lance’s pace is something brutal.

It’s animalistic and rough, so unbearably fast that Keith is filled and empty within an instant, over and over again, so fast he can’t get used to either sensation and is forced to just bounce weakly each time Lance’s cock plunges into him again. And Keith loves it, tips his head back and gasps into the night air, makes pleading noises that could be words if he wasn’t getting the air beaten out of his lungs by Lance.

He bears down on Keith, drags Keith’s body down against his like a ragdoll, makes sure he feels it as the swell of his knot presses insistently against his rim. There’s no give there, no way he can take something that’s already so much bigger than the rest of Lance’s cock. But Lance just grins, pushes with more insistence, until Keith’s legs are kicking out uselessly to try and distract from the steady pressure.

“Ah, Lance! It’s not gonna fit! It-” 

“Come on, Red.” Lance growls out, his thrusts growing in urgency as he tries to force the knot into the tight, wet, heat waiting for him. His hands on Keith’s hips are scrabbling across his skin, leaving claw marks in their wake that well up with blood. Keith whimpers. “They’re all watching. Do you really wanna disappoint at the finale? I know you can take it, now be a good bitch and open up. This is what you’re  _ made _ for.” 

With that, Keith bolts upright and looks around the clearing. Sure enough, Lance isn’t lying, even though Keith had been too caught up in the moment to notice the feeling of being watched. There are at least ten different people gathered around them. He makes eye contact with one and they wink back at him, licking their lips hungrily. He feels like a lamb again suddenly, dancing around and waving himself around in front of wolves.

There’s something about being able to see all the eyes watching them, it has Keith feeling flighty with embarrassment, but also… heavy with a desire to please, to live up to expectations, to put on a show worth watching for their audience. They all seem intrigued, to a point that it must not be often that anyone actually gets to shove their freaky werewolf knots inside of someone that can physically handle it. Keith flushes in embarrassment, but he closes his eyes and tries to concentrate.

He breathes heavily through his mouth, long even breaths, wills himself to relax.

It isn’t even the pain so much anymore, as much as it’s just doubting that his body can physically open wide enough to take something so large. He trusts Lance though, trusts that he knows what he’s doing.

He relaxes.

Lance immediately rams his hips up against his with enough force to have Keith tilting the tree behind him backward. He forces his knot in whether Keith can physically take it or not. Once he’s in, his hips stutter back and forth uselessly in short shallow thrusts that seem to be out of his control. He fucks quick and hard, rhythmless, just trying to work his cock against Keith’s muscles and get himself off as fast as possible. The knot pulls against Keith’s rim, but it’s not coming back out now. It’s already swelling bigger, making sure they’re good and stuck, locked together.

And Keith’s a good sport for the most part, only wrenches out a single gasp of a sob before gritting his teeth and taking it. The pain ebbs away quickly enough, but then he’s just left with the feeling of fullness that rivals anything he’s ever felt.

“Fuck.” Keith curses, can feel himself bearing down on the intrusion, body trying uselessly to accommodate for it by either pulling it deeper or pushing it out. His insides have to be twitching around Lance hard enough for him to feel it, desperately working against his knot. Lance would probably say it’s his body’s way of milking the cock in his ass, trying to pull it deep and get it to come inside.

“Mm, just like that.” Lance praises, finally starting to slow down the senseless battering of Keith’s insides now that he’s found purchase there. He rolls his hips in shallow aborted little movements, back and forth, like he’s coaxing himself toward his climax with careful control. He’s teetering on the edge, all tense and drawn up, ready to bust at any fucking second-

Keith squirms the _ slightest  _ bit. He can’t help it, his leg is cramping, he’s stretched wider than he’s ever been, and he’s so fucking hard it hurts. But something about the movement must jostle Lance inside of him just right, must have him squeezing involuntarily harder around the knot in his ass, must be the domino that triggers the collapse.

And then Lance is coming. Oh, fucking god, is he ever coming.

Keith moans like a whore as he feels it fill him, searing hot and shooting into the deepest parts of him. It doesn’t help that Lance is honest to god whining through it, little whimpers and pleased moans, like he’s in the deepest throes of ecstasy he’s ever known. He’s clawing weakly at Keith’s thighs, forcing them even further apart, pushing himself deeper and letting his knot rub up against Keith’s inner walls as he paints them white with his cum. 

It’s a ridiculous amount, honestly, Keith already feels off-kilter with how full his ass is from the knot, but the added cum sloshing around inside of him doesn’t help. Lance is really dumping it into him too, seeding him so fully and deeply that there’s no doubt in Keith’s mind that he would be a well-bred bitch if it was possible. Lance’s body is made for it, for getting deep inside and claiming a spot for himself there, marking his territory from the inside out.

Keith reaches down, hand sliding across his stomach on the way to his cock. He only means to jerk himself off, but he hesitates when his hand settles over the pouch of his stomach. He presses down on it, feels the way it gives easily, full of nothing but liquid. But he can also feel something solid, something that presses up into his palm as Lance rocks his hips. 

It’s too intimate, feeling the way Lance’s cock is fucking him open, pressing so deep inside of him that he can feel it from the outside. He trembles as his cock twitches, untouched and neglected, trying valiantly to come without any stimulation. 

Lance is slowly starting to come back to himself, though Keith is pretty sure he’s still spraying cum inside of his ass. He’s at least capable of lifting his head and looking into Keith’s eyes, speaking a coherent sentence even. 

“For someone who didn’t want my knot, your body’s sure trying to pull it even deeper.”

“Wh-”

“That’s right. Greedy for it, aren’t you? Gonna get addicted to the feeling of my knot shoved inside of your ass, stretching it out and holding it open for my cock.” Lance growls, bucks his hips in one hard thrust and has Keith crying out as the way his too-full body jerks with the movement. “You like being stuffed full of my cum, don’t you?”

“Lance.” Keith cries out. “I need to come, I need to fucking-”

“Go ahead, baby.” Lance reaches down and toys with the head of his cock, crooks a finger and drags it across the slit where Keith is leaking. It’s too rough of a touch for such a sensitive area, Keith cries out like he’s been struck, but Lance doesn’t relent. He just keeps rubbing over the head of Keith’s cock, grinding his thumb against it until Keith’s entire body is twitching and shuddering. “Made me knot so hard. Took it so well. You earned this.”

Keith looks down between them, watches the way Lance’s hand runs over his cock time and time again, watches the flushed and leaking head poke out from his fist with each trip up and down. He’s close, unbearably slow with the pressure against his prostate and Lance’s unforgiving pace. It’s just… he squints, notices that Lance’s hands are indeed growing hairier. 

“Your hands-” Keith murmurs, reaching down to trace his fingertips across Lance’s knuckles. The short brown hair there clings to his sweaty fingertips. 

“Yeah, I know, we’re sorta running outta time here.” 

“Are the others-” Keith careens his neck out, tries to get a glimpse of anyone else. Lance isn’t having that though, lets out a low possessive growl to reprimand him. Immediately, Keith gets with the picture, turns back to him and only him. He leans in close, kisses at Lance’s jaw.

“You’re  _ mine _ . I won’t let them have you, Red.” Lance insists, his hand on Keith’s cock picking up speed until it’s dangerous close to being overstimulating again. It doesn’t help that Lance’s knot is still resting heavy against his rim, tugging weakly on it with every minute shift of Lance’s hips. It’s obscene, he knows it is, can feel the first drips of cum starting to squeeze past it as the swelling starts to go down.

It’ll be a mess when Lance pulls out. 

When Keith comes, he feels it in his entire body. From the curl of his toes, to the supernova of his mind, to the pebbling of his hard nipples, to the twitch of his thighs, and finally the length of his cock as it travels up, up, up and then explodes. He comes so hard he sees stars, splatters his seed all over himself and Lance alike, makes a proper mess out of it that he’d probably find the time to be ashamed about if he wasn’t so damned turned on.

And the entire time, Lance holds him. His knot a constant pulsing pressure inside of Keith, keeping him stretched out and loose, a reminder of what they’ve just done.

Keith is still lost in the headspace of his impressive orgasm, basking in the feelings, when Lance starts to pull out. His knot has gone down considerably, a few minutes having passed, and when he pulls his hips back and works it against Keith’s rim… it eases slowly past. Keith feels it the second it pops free, feels the distinct absence and the crawling emptiness. He whines in complaint and Lance shushes him.

“I know, Red, I know.” Lance reaches down, plugs five fingers back into him with ease, keeps the cum from spilling down Keith’s ass and thighs. Keith’s eyelids flutter and he moans, rocking back against Lance’s hand, getting it to sink deeper inside. 

When Keith comes back down from the sensation, Lance eases his hand free and lowers him gently back down to the ground, even takes the time to grab Keith’s shirt from before and place it underneath him. Keith can’t express with words how much he appreciates not having to sit his cum-covered ass down on dirt, so he just leans in to kiss Lance again and tell him that way.

Except, Lance dodges the embrace. He leans away, gets to his feet. Keith watches him go in confusion.

“Where are you going?”

“Kinda figured you were down for the count.” Lance looks sheepish as he turns back to address Keith, he scratches at the thick fur growing in all over his arms. Keith swallows roughly around the lump in his throat, tries to stand too fast and finds his legs are still useless underneath him. But Lance is there, of course he is. Even at his time of need, he’s there, to support Keith. He gets his arms under Keith’s and hauls him upright, pulls him into a tight hug. “You should stay here. You don’t wanna watch this part, trust me. It gets gross.”

“But the others-”

“They won’t touch you. They know better.” Lance tells him, presses a kiss to the top of his head. But then he’s flinching, entire body shuddering with an obvious jolt of pain. The noise is pulls from his chest is deep and guttural, hurt in a way so innate that Keith is driven mad by it. Every part of him is desperate to comfort, to make this somehow easier on Lance. And Lance is still just grinning at him, forcing himself to wear the placating expression. Only ever worried about Keith. “Trust me, you’re safe.”

“Does it hurt?” Keith asks, ignoring him. He presses a hand to Lance’s chest, can feel the way his ribs are actively shifting around inside of it, snapping and rearranging themselves into something more convex. It should probably gross him out more than it does, but instead it only has him feeling deeply sympathetic.

“It’s not exactly pleasant, no.” Lance grits out. He turns to look over his shoulder and Keith follows his line of sight, goes horrifically silent at the sight he sees. All the other pack members are in varying stages of their own transformations, some already beginning to look more animal than human. They’re quiet about it, biting down on their noises to try and appear strong, but if Keith listens he can hear the shifting of bones and the quiet punched-out pained noises beneath it. “I should go, I should-”

“Stay.” Keith demands, puts all of the confidence he has into it. Lance turns back to him and gapes like he’s lost his mind, but Keith just leans in quick and kisses him on the lips. He lingers there, even when Lance’s face screws up into a pained expression as the next wave hits. Keith only kisses him harder then, tries desperately to distract him from it.

And so Lance stays. Keith sits down in front of the tree and Lance collapses into his lap, twists and curls up there with each shot of pain through his body. His hands are rough when they grab onto Keith’s for support, his claws fully out and extended, beyond his control. Keith grits his teeth and bears it though, tries desperately to keep his voice even as he whispers words of comfort.

“I know, I know it hurts. I’m sorry.”

“Never stops feeling like the end of the world.” Lance is sobbing now, tears streaking his entire face in a wet slide, mixing with the blood gathered on his neck. It’s such a stark contrast to where he’d been just moments before, Keith can’t wrap his head around it. But he tries, he tries to be there with everything he has.

“Hey, look at me?” Keith whispers, tone as gentle as he can make it be. Lance wrenches his eyes open and peers up at him, looks dazed with pain. Keith presses a hand to his cheek. “I love you too.”

The words seem to take a second to register, but then Lance is grinning. Slow, lazy, so plainly happy that there’s no denying how much the confession means to him. He turns his head and presses his face into Keith’s stomach, pants against his skin, but the smile is still there. Keith can feel it.

Lance continues to twitch and writhe in his lap for the next ten minutes, face screwed up in pain. It’s the most harrowing thing Keith has ever seen, and distantly he’s aware of the fact that earlier tonight he’d been out to inflict this level of pain on Lance. It’s an awful thought. So awful he can’t even bring himself to dwell on why he no longer feels compelled to do it.

Instead, he puts all of his focus into comforting Lance. He runs his hands through his hair, brushes it back from his sweaty forehead and hums a soft song under his breath. Lance stares up at him with wide, wild eyes. He looks terrified, like he’s going through this for the very first time, isn’t sure what to expect and if he’ll survive it. Keith can’t imagine. “You got this, Lance. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

He’s not.

He’s never going anywhere ever again.

No one can tear him away from Lance now, not his maker, not the rest of the pack, no one. He feels like he’s finally found where he’s meant to be, embraced it, allowed himself to have it and to truly feel like he deserves it. Lance wants him, for whatever reason. Who is he to deny him?

\--

Lance as a wolf is… adorable.

Keith can’t help it, he might let out a little squee when all is said and done.

Wolf Lance is immediately aware of his surroundings, even if his body is taking a few seconds to recover after the long agonizing transformation. Lance’s eagerness isn’t letting him take his time though, has him bounding toward the rest of his pack before he’s even ready to walk, much less run. He collapses a couple times on the way, but once he gets the hang of it there’s no stopping him.

He barrels into the other wolves, barking and howling with them, rolling around and play fighting in a way that looks far too rough to be fun. Keith loses sight of him amongst the others, so he hangs back by the tree and debates about what to do next. The command is still a backseat thought to everything else, somehow, but he doesn’t know if he wants to leave Lance’s side now that he’s here. 

A half an hour or so passes and the wolves start to disperse into the woods, breaking up into smaller groups within the pack. Keith watches them go, curiously wishing he could follow behind and see what they get up to during the night. He stays where he is though, and is grateful he made that decision when he feels something brush against his hand moments later.

He looks down to find yellow eyes peering back up at him, wide and expectant. Lance almost looks like he’s smiling, even in this form. He licks Keith’s hand a few times, nuzzles into his palm. Keith smiles, kneels down next to him to scratch his head. The entire time, Lance stares toward the last of the other wolves and where they’re disappearing into the trees.

Keith feels a pang of guilt, keeping him here when he so obviously wants to be with his own kind.

“Go on, I know you wanna be with them.” Keith reassures him, gives a final lingering scratch between his ears. Lance leans up into it, entire body wiggling excitedly, tail wagging so inhumanly fast behind him that it’s a wonder it isn’t knocking trees over. Lance just keeps staring up at Keith, wide and hopeful, so very invested. Keith sighs. “No? You wanna stick around here? Wanna stay with me?”

Lance lets out two loud yips, bouncing back and forth on his front legs, dropping down into a playful pose with his rump high in the air behind him, tail still wagging away. Keith has never had a dog… but surely this can’t be that much different from that? Maybe they could play fetch and he could rub Lance’s belly and-

He pauses that train of thought, as Lance steps up to him and circles around him. He leans in, nips at his ankles just hard enough for it to hurt, and then darts away like Keith will chase him. Keith watches him with fond exasperation, runs a hand through his hair. He isn’t about to run through the woods half-naked with a wolf, he’s not that level of feral yet.

“I’m not playing. Go find the other wolves if you wanna mess around all night.”

Lance narrows his eyes, looks the slightest bit irritated if the crinkle in his muzzle is anything to go by.

He bounds forward again, Keith braces himself for more nips at the ankles, even starts to giggle before it happens. 

Except, this time Lance doesn’t go straight to biting. Instead, he steps close and shoves his cold, wet nose up the line of Keith’s ass crack. Keith squeals loudly, reaches back around himself to smack blindly at Lance’s head, cursing loudly. Lance growls at him, and now the biting comes back into play, as he nips at Keith’s hands that are trying to reprimand him.

Keith stumbles away. Looks back at Lance with wide, mortified eyes. Lance just sits back on his haunches and pants, tilts his head to the side expectantly, tongue lolling out. Keith glares at him. 

“I don’t know if you’re in there, Lance, but knock it off.” Keith tells him, tries to ignore how terribly he’s blushing. Lance just looks at him like he’s stupid, like he can’t understand a word of Keith’s request. It’s possible he can’t, but Keith finds that hard to believe. Not when the wolf in front of him looks so very… Lance-like. The expressions, the postures, the behavior… it’s all Lance, just in a different body.

It’s definitely Lance when it bounds forward again, hops up to wrap its front legs around Keith’s leg in a death grip and starts going to fucking town on his knee. Keith gapes, weakly tries to shove Lance off as he humps his leg in earnest, hips moving wicked fast in short, jerky little thrusts.

Keith is going to kill him tomorrow. 

“Bad doggie! We’re not doing that! Not while you’re… a wolf.”

Reluctantly, Lance backs off. 

Keith isn’t sure if that means he definitely understands what Keith is saying or if it’s just by chance.

But then Lance is back to bouncing around like a lunatic, jumping and careening around the clearing, legs kicking out in every which direction. He does laps around the clearing, around Keith, until he’s kicking up leaves and dirt behind him. He circles in close, eyes alight with mischief, and goes back to nipping at Keith’s ankles. Keith crumples in on himself in defeat.

“Fine! I’ll play chase with you! But we’re not doing the other thing!” Keith huffs out, taking off into a sprint through the woods. He uses his vampire speed to his advantage, puts as much space as he can between him and Lance before the wolf notices he’s on the move. He only has so much time to get a head start. He knows that Lance is monumentally faster than him, that he’d catch up within seconds once he actually started to-

Lance tackles him into the ground, sends them both toppling over each other a good ten feet before they’re settling side-by-side in the dirt. Keith gives himself a few seconds to recover, but Lance is immediately on his feet again and barking demandingly, ready for a rematch. 

Keith can already feel himself growing tired. Lance is a never-ending ball of energy like this.

\--

A hundred matches of chase later and a few short conversations, Keith comes to the conclusion that Lance is absolutely still inside his mind and understands every word of what Keith is saying. Which is a relief, but also a slap in the face, because Lance is doing  _ anything _ but listening to him. 

He won’t give Keith a damn break, keeps pushing him to run and play, is far too rough when they wrestle in the grass. He leaves Keith bloodied and bruised, nursing his wounds while he waits for his super healing to kick in. Lance doesn’t even look remorseful, full of pride as he gloats over his wins.

Four hours in and Lance is still so full of energy, so very Lance… that Keith maybe caves.

He maybe… lets Lance fuck him. As a wolf.

But only in the spirit of wearing him out and shutting him up! Keith isn’t into it! That’d be weird, even if Lance  _ is _ in there and fully capable of consenting, it’s still weird!

\--

… After being knotted and plugged full of cum five more times throughout the night, Keith comes to the conclusion that he  _ might _ be just the _ slightest  _ bit into it.

\--

Keith has been sitting in the same spot for an hour, panting brokenly as he struggles against the chains he’s wrapped in. It doesn’t help that Lance is lying just a few feet away from him, snoozing happily in the soft long grass of the clearing, legs kicking out in his sleep. 

The very first werewolf to transform back into their human form is the first stranger from the night before, the one that had sniffed Keith out and tackled him, the one that Lance had called “Shiro”. Keith is cuddled up next to a sleeping wolf Lance when Shiro approaches him and holds up an armful of chains expectantly. He tells him it’s for his own good, for Lance’s safety. Keith doesn’t even fight, he lets himself be tied up.

Keith is fine for the first half an hour, but then the command starts sinking back into his thoughts and it’s all he can stand not to scream and cry in his binds. He wants desperately to get loose. To carry out his order. To kill Lance.

Lance is actually one of the first to transform back. Keith watched it happen earlier this morning, right after he’d been chained up here. It was painful watching Lance in so much pain and not being able to comfort him at all, but more painful was the lingering desire in Keith’s gut to cause him even more harm. 

Lance passed out pretty much immediately after transforming, it seemed to take a lot out of him. He hasn’t woken up since, though the rest of the pack seems to be growing antsy waiting for him. He’s the last one left unconscious, snoring quietly away. Some of the older pack members seem annoyed that he’s holding them up, annoyed that this whole situation with Keith is even happening. But for the most part, everyone seems content to give Lance his time.

Keith is sort-of getting the impression that Lance… rules the roost, a little bit. They’re all protective of him, sweet to an extent, equal parts exasperated and amused by his antics. He must be the youngest, the newest pack member. They treat him like the baby, let him get away with stuff the others don’t seem to be able to.

Hell, even now, Keith watches as Romelle settles next to Lance’s sleeping form and waves a chocolate bar in front of his nose. Lance licks his lips in his sleep, nose sniffing in overdrive as he leans up toward it. It almost looks like he’s going to take a bite and Keith is starting to wonder if he’s actually sleeping or just faking it. Romelle hasn’t realized yet though, is still grinning like she’s just teasing him while he sleeps, a devious glint in her eyes.

And then Lance is pouncing, bolting upright open-mouthed and devouring the entire chocolate bar in a single bite. She squeals in shock and then takes to pounding on his chest, eyebrows drawn tight together in annoyance.

“You greedy little shit! Give it back!”

“Shouldn’t have gone waving it in my face, dumbass.” Lance sneers back at her, sticks out his grossly chocolate-covered tongue in her face. She shoves him into the dirt and walks away. Lance is still giggling to himself as he settles back in the grass and stretches his body out, joints popping and bones shifting back into place. He licks his lips, eyelids threatening to flutter closed again. Lazy.

Everyone else has already gotten dressed, gathering clothes that they had stashed away in the woods in advance. Lance is the only one left naked and he hardly seems bashful about it, body spread out on display for anyone that wants to take a peek. Keith’s cheeks flush as he does just that.

“Lance, I think you’ve had enough time to sleep in.” Shiro comments, walking over to poke his boot into Lance’s side, lightly kicking him in the ribs. An unintelligible grunt comes in response, just on the edge of forming words. 

“Give me another ten minutes, dude.” Lance grumbles, rolling over and shoving his face into the grass. His entire body looks bent into an uncomfortable twist of limbs, like he’d jumped from a three story building and just landed that way. But he doesn’t seem to be in any pain, so Keith wonders if maybe he’s just that flexible. Maybe flexibility comes with your bones rearranging themselves on a monthly basis, he isn’t sure. “Feels like I got hit by a semi-truck last night.”

“Nope, just mauled by a particularly feisty little vampire.” Romelle adds, her tone upbeat as she walks back over and uncaps her water bottle, making a point to dump some out across Lance’s face. He bolts upright and scrubs his hands across his face, wiping at the water.

“What?” Lance laughs like he doesn’t believe her, looking around. He blinks a few times to orient himself, but then those big blue eyes go immediately wide with shock. “Keith?! What are you doing here?! Why would you-”

“Unchain me!” Keith hisses, pulling on his binds again, reminded of their presence.

Lance presses his hand to his temple, clearly struggling to remember the events of the night before.

“Wait a minute, did you try to  _ kill me _ last night?!”

“I can explain!”

“We had sex.” Lance gasps in realization, bolting upright onto his feet. He holds a hand up, pointing directly at Keith, slack jawed and wide eyed. He looks like fucking Italian spiderman. Keith is about ready to lose his patience at this point. “Holy fucking shit. I had sex with you as a wolf! I put my fucking wolf dick inside of you.”

Keith flushes all the way down the back of his neck, not missing the quiet snickers of some of the pack members circling around them. He hangs his head, trying to hide his ashamed scowl, as well as the way his eyes surely pool with lust at the memories. Fuck, had Lance ever put it inside of him. They’d had sex so many times by sunrise that even Keith’s superhuman healing abilities were being tested. 

“Yikes.  _ Awkward _ .” Romelle mutters. “I was kinda hoping we could all pretend that never happened.”

“Lance, there are more pressing issues than-” 

“How did it even  _ fit _ ?” Lance interrupts again, because apparently he’s going to be hung up on this for a little longer than everyone else. Keith shifts awkwardly where he sits, tied up in chains, an ungodly amount of cum still lodged inside of him and dripping from his hole. No amount of vampire superpowers could save him from that. He felt utterly gross and sticky all over. Inside and out.

“Lance! Enough!” This time, Shiro’s voice holds a command in its own right. He turns to Keith, gives a subtle gesture with his hand to ask him to speak up. “Explain yourself. Again.”

“Lance.” Keith addresses him seriously, even though he’s definitely still burning up. “My maker ordered me to kill you. He figured you would kill me before I ever got the chance to touch you, that your instincts would make you slaughter every vampire in sight. It was a suicide mission to punish me for getting close to you. He wanted me dead.”

“Keith.” Lance’s voice softened, his own train of thought going off-track in an instant to accommodate for Keith’s. He walks over and falls back to the ground in front of Keith, hands settling on Keith’s bare legs, not even the tatters of what used to be jeans clinging onto them, save for the waistband and belt around his hips. Keith nervously makes eye contact, and Lance’s eyes are so blue, so filled with emotion for him. 

Yet, all he can think about is completing his order, rendering that gorgeous face lifeless. It’s horrific.

Lance leans in, arms outstretched and ready to latch on. Keith doesn’t get the chance to share a word of protest before Lance has him wrapped up into a hug. “Oh, Keith, I am so sorry. I can’t believe he did-”

“Lance! Watch out!” Romelle’s warning also comes too late.

Keith tilts his head back and hisses, fangs extending in an instant and plunging into the neck displayed so prettily in front of him with their current position. He doesn’t even really try to drink, more focused on doing damage and aiming to kill, than to get a good meal out of it. Blood floods his mouth all the same though, the rich heady taste of it washing over him and leaving him lapping it up.

“Ow, you bastard!” Lance whines loudly, grabbing Keith’s hair and trying to force him off. Keith just bites down harder in response, again and again, practically gnawing on Lance’s shoulder at this point. It’s littered with bites, all of them red and angry welts against tan skin. In the end, Shiro has to pull him off again, a subtle threatening grumble and a yank of his hair with more force than Lance would ever dare to apply. 

Lance stares at him, pouting slightly. “What was that for?!”

“The order to kill you doesn’t just go away, Lance!” Keith shouts, squirming uselessly without the ability to stomp around to emphasize his point. He addresses Lance solemnly, feeling remorse for his actions now that there’s space between them again, and he’s left regretting ever letting himself get so close that he posed a risk. “I’m making a constant effort to fight it. Hence the chains.”

“Jesus.” Lance gets to his feet and turns around, pacing uselessly back and forth across the clearing, naked as the day he was born. Keith’s eyes follow the subtle swing of his hips, the way the curves of his ass cheeks seem to bounce with each step. He’s weak for it, even now. “Was he trying to kill me the  _ entire _ time we had sex?”

“Well, I think he got a little distracted from the goal at hand, understandably so.” Romelle’s voice is teasing, but it alights a realization all the same. Keith thinks back to the night before. Sure, he’d spent most of the night with fangs bared and claws scratching at Lance, but not with the intent to kill. There had been a solid few hours that the order hadn’t even crossed his mind.

And, come to think of it, right now... there isn’t a crawling need to get closer to Lance at any cost, nothing more than would be considered normal given the naked state he’s in. Keith furrows his eyebrows together, trying to piece together. He can’t feel his connection to his maker at all, no looming presence in the back of his mind.

Never before has an order faded in and out of being his top priority like this.

“Romelle.” Shiro’s voice is pleading. “ _ Please  _ shut-up. My head is pounding. I’m going to puke up a deer.”

“Guys?! Hello?! My vampire lover wants to kill me!” Lance interrupts them both, clapping a hand down on each of their shoulders and shaking their upper halves. Then, he turns around to address the whole of the pack, waving his hands outrageously. “Anyone have any suggestions on how to fix that?”

“Maybe try an edible arrangement!” Someone yells, in the distance. Lance recoils like he’s been struck.

“I come to you guys for relationship advice  _ one time! _ ”

“Calm down, Lance.” A heavy hand settles on Lance’s shoulder. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Lance.” Keith gasps, reaching a conclusion. Lance is off on a rant though, doesn’t even spare him a second glance, probably assumes he’s trying to lure him in for another attack. Keith glares.

“What options do we have, Shiro?!” Lance is beside himself with grief. Keith and Shiro both look equally tired under the weight of it. “Other than killing the leader of the biggest coven in the city!”

“ _ Lance _ !” Keith tries again, and this time Lance just gives him a sad glance and looks away again.

“Oh, god. Keith is gonna be at my throat for the rest of time, and not in the old married couple way that I always imagined, but in the literal murderous rampage way!” 

“Lance, shut the fuck up!” Keith roars, thrashing against his chains to try and get their attention. It seems to work, everyone immediately going on the defensive the moment he shows any sign of aggression whatsoever, distrusting by nature. Keith doesn’t care. He only cares that Lance is looking at him, with none of the hatred or distrust in his expression. Just soft, caring concern like always.

Keith smiles at him. “It’s gone. The connection to my maker. This happened last night too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think it’s the blood. The werewolf blood.” Keith explains hurriedly, excitement growing as he speaks his theory out loud. It makes sense! Sort-of. He’s not exactly sure the magic logistics of it, he’s still a little baffled by the fact vampires and werewolves exist at all so he might never understand the supernatural elements of it. But, it makes sense that his maker would go to great lengths to keep him and all of his fledglings away from werewolves, if their blood held such a power. “Every time I’ve so much as tasted it, it’s like my connection to him disappears. That first time outside my dorm? I didn’t even feel him summoning me, I just saw him physically standing behind you. And last night, Romelle mentioned I got distracted, but, um, commands don’t work like that for vampires. I would have been trying to kill you the whole night through and for most of the night it didn’t even cross my mind, it didn’t really become a pressing thought again until this morning. Probably because I drank so much blood last night, more than ever before, so its effects lasted longer.”

“I don’t know enough about vampires to decide whether that sounds possible or not.” 

“I fell asleep next to you, Lance! You transformed on top of me! If the order had any power over me at all last night, that would have been the perfect time to strike!”

“He makes a point.” Lance muses to himself, scratching at his chin. No one else looks convinced.

“Unchain me and I’ll prove it!” Keith demands. Most of the werewolves immediately roll their eyes and dismiss the suggestion, but Lance has a curious glint in his eyes. Before anyone can react, he’s sliding to his knees in front of Keith and making quick work of setting him free.

“Lance, what are y-” Shiro sounds the closest to genuinely angry Keith has heard yet, jogging toward them to try and stop Lance in time. But Keith’s hands already have more give in the chains, more room to move and start shrugging off his binds on his own. “Lance!”

Shiro tries to rip Lance away from Keith in time, but Keith is much faster than them now that they don’t have the full moon on their side. He pounces in one smooth movement, soaring through the air right into Lance’s chest. He sends them both into the dirt, his hair falling wildly around their faces as he leans in close.

“Big mistake, big mis-” Lance yelps, curling in on himself and trying to cover his vitals with his hands, doing a terrible job of it. Luckily, Keith isn’t a hunter honing in on prey, ready to go for the finishing blow at the first possible opportunity. He feels surprisingly normal right now, considering the context he finds himself saying that in. 

When he doesn’t immediately move to hurt him, Lance slowly relaxes and blinks up at him, the faintest hint of an impish grin. He leans up to meet Keith, pressing their foreheads together. “Keith? Is that you?”

“Yeah.” Keith breathes, leaning in to kiss him hard. There are still at least five werewolves standing at the ready around them, ready to intervene if need be. But that doesn’t end up happening, and Lance melts in Keith’s hands like worn putty, moaning softly into his mouth. He’s pretty sure Lance would kill anyone that tried to tear him away at this point, regardless of whether they were trying to protect him or not. 

Keith pulls back, trying not to look as inescapably soft for Lance as he actually is. He presses a hand into the center of Lance’s chest, pressing him down and pinning him to the ground. Keith settles on his hips, flush against him, and stares down at him with a scowl. “It’s me. Gonna beat the shit out of you anyway though, for fucking me in front of an audience of twenty and calling me your bitch.”

“You loved it, don’t lie.” Lance grins devilishly, eyes lidded as they stare back at Keith, long thick lashes resting heavily over swirling blue irises. Keith scowls. Lance just lights up even more, like he’s exposed himself and admitted to something terrible with that scowl. “You _ love  _ me.”

“Your dick is the only thing that keeps me coming back, your personality is tolerable at best.” Keith grins, quoting Nyma from that day in the library effortlessly. Lance’s jaw drops and an offended screech echoes through the clearing, causing all the other wolves to grumble in annoyance and clap their hands over their sensitive ears.

“Rude!” And with that, Lance sends them both toppling into the dirt, grappling with each other butt-naked in an effort to come out on top. In Lance’s exhausted state, his powers already waning after the moon, Keith easily pins him once again. This time he has an arm bent behind Lance’s back, sitting atop his ass and even grinding experimentally against it to rub it in. Lance’s soft gasp doesn’t go unnoticed, no matter how much he tries to hide it. Keith laughs to himself, gloating over his win.

Things are back as they should be.

Later, after Lance begs him for mercy for a while and is made fun of by all of his packmates for being so easily bested by a vampire, Keith relents. He lets Lance get onto his feet and reorient himself. He really does look exhausted, a creeping sort-of tired that has his whole face looking dark and sullen whenever he forgets to smile through it. Something protective surges up in Keith and he spends the rest of the morning letting Lance hang off of him, clingy idiot that he is.

Lance invites him to breakfast with the pack and immediately starts pleading with him to say yes, like he’s certain right from the start that Keith will reject him again. Keith has no reason to, no obligation hanging over his head to hold himself back. He pulls Lance in and kisses him, says he’d be happy to go.

And god, does Lance ever light up at that. The most blinding, adoring smile Keith has ever had laid on him. Lance kisses him so many times his legs feel like jelly beneath him, and he’s certain all the food will be gone by the time they ever catch up with the rest of the pack. 

\--

“It’s rough to be a supernatural being without a place to call home.” Shiro comments, as he helps himself to a third plateful of breakfast. Keith had always thought that being surrounded by feral feeding vampires was disgusting, but it’s something else watching the sheer amount of food the pack of werewolves eats through in one sitting. They’re savage about it too, shouting and fighting over the long board-room type table they all were seated around. 

“Yeah, I can see how it would be.” Keith mutters, tearing his eyes off of where Lance and Romelle are bickering over the last leg of chicken. 

It really does have the same sense as what Keith always imagined a family might be like, it definitely resembles all the stories Lance told about his own family back home in Cuba. Keith can see why Lance likes it here.

And Lance does like it, for all his complaining and fighting, he’s smiling through it all. He’s choosing to be here when he could very easily head to the nearest bed and pass out. He’s enjoying their time together, and enjoying sharing it with Keith for whatever reason.

“What do you plan on doing?” Shiro asks, levelling Keith with an even stare. It isn’t bored and callous like his own master had always been, it’s full of understanding. Shiro looks like a weary old man, despite being in his thirties at most. He’s not even the oldest member of the pack, but he seems it, whenever you look into those dark grey eyes. There’s years of experience and comprehension there beyond anything Keith has ever seen, even reflected in the vampires that had been alive for thousands of years.

Keith wonders if Shiro imposed himself as pack leader or if the others picked him. 

“Are you asking if I’m going back to the coven?” Keith asks in belated realization.

“I’m just curious. You don’t have many options, eventually your maker will realize that his plan didn’t work out how he intended. He’ll summon you. Just to be sure the deed was done.”

“I’d sooner  _ die _ than go back there.” Keith practically snarls the words, hands gripping the edge of the table angrily. He says it with conviction, with such all-consuming emotion that it’s all he can do to stay in his seat. He feels like he should be protesting it even more than he is. He needs it to be very clear that he has no loyalty to that place or its people. None at all.

“You’re kinda already dead.” Romelle mutters, breaking the tense silence that had fallen over the room.

“Shut-up, Romelle, you’re being insensitive.” Lance elbows her in the side, and they exchange a pair of withering glares, before she snatches a steak off his plate and goes straight to gnawing on it. Lance growls, but he doesn’t persist. He sighs, turning to Keith instead. “You won’t have to, Keith. I have enough blood for both of us. You’ll never have to go back there again, I swear.”

Keith hardly has time to offer a smile of gratitude before Shiro speaks up, tone firm with a counter argument. There’s an air of authority about him that has the entire table quieting down to listen.

“And what happens when the coven comes here? Trying to reclaim their stolen property?” Shiro asks, setting his fork down with a metallic clank. Lance looks past Keith, all but glaring at his leader. He quickly opens his mouth to protest and Keith can just imagine the sort-of stubborn argument he’s gonna make, but Shiro must be able to too. He holds a hand up, silencing him before he even speaks. “That’s how they view it, Lance, you know it is. To them Keith is just a piece of property to fight over.”

“Well, when they come knockin’ we will just have to protect him.”

“They’ll wait until the day after the full moon, when we’re weakest.”

“We’ll be prepared.”

“How? Please, by all means, share your plan with me, Lance. I want to believe we’d have a chance, but they are strong. They’re making more vampires by the day, voluntarily. Our pack rarely grows.”

“I don’t fucking know, Shiro! All I know is that we’ll find a way! We have to. I won’t let Keith go back there and get hurt anymore. It’s not an option.”

“I’m going to kill them.” Keith says, interrupting the argument that was slowly unfolding in front of him, talking about his future like he wasn’t right there listening. Keith looks between the two of them, jaw set in a deep clench. “I’ll hunt them down one by one before the next moon arrives. Pick them off like flies.”

“You mean that?”

“I might need your help, but yes.” Keith nods. “I know where all the high ranking coven members spend their time. I know where we can find them alone and outnumber them. Once all of the makers are gone, the lower ranking coven members would easily disband, hardly anyone is there by their free will.”

“Hm…” Shiro cracks his knuckles, looking contemplative. Everyone around the table had tapered off into whispers and discussions on the topic of their own now, conspiring, planning. Keith’s gaze stays glued to Shiro though. His opinion is what matters most. “They  _ have  _ been encroaching on our territory. And sending one of their own with a direct order to kill was an act of war, whether he succeeded or not. We wouldn’t be out of line to defend ourselves.”

“Yeah, plus they’re fucking shitty people.” Romelle adds, chugging down a glass of orange juice. She slams it down on the table hard enough that it’s a wonder it doesn’t end up shattering in her menacing grip. “I’m with Lance’s murderous boyfriend. I think it’s a good idea to get them before they get us, you know it’s coming. We’ve been on bad terms for long before this.”

“Well, we can discuss the specifics later, but I think the answer’s obvious.” Lance speaks up, as loudly as he normally would, speaking over every other conversation with ease. Over twenty sets of eyes land on him with begrudged acceptance, like they already know they won’t like what he has to say. Lance barges ahead anyway, indifferent. “Keith’s joining our pack!”

Lance slings an arm around Keith’s shoulders at that, beaming proudly.

“Like hell he is, he’s a vampire!” Someone from down the table shouts, an older gentleman. Keith avoids eye contact, ducking his head low into Lance’s shoulder. He’s inexplicably nervous all the sudden. 

“Shiro, come on.” Lance levels Shiro with a deeply pleading look, eyebrows drawn up high and eyes imploring. Keith is blushing like mad where he is, pressed into Lance’s side, held there protectively like Lance is shielding him from every negative opinion anyone might have. Keith wants to say he’s above it, that he doesn’t need to be coddled, but he kinda likes it. No one has ever shown him as much care as Lance has. “He  _ needs _ us. Just like I did in the beginning.”

“Lance.” Shiro seems to have a headache coming on, as he reaches up to rub at the creases of his temples, grumbling under his breath. Lance takes it in stride, doesn’t back down and go silent like all the other people around the table seem to. “There are risks associated with letting him stay here. It’s not the same, he isn’t one of-”

“Neither was I.” Lance interjects. “Whoever turned me wasn’t a member of our pack and you took me in anyway. That was a risk too, wasn’t it? What if they’d come back looking for me and weren’t happy about you stealing  _ their  _ newest recruit, huh?” 

“God, would you stop with the puppy-dog eyes? It’s only cute the first ten times.” Romelle rolls her eyes, giving Lance an annoyed shove. It only really works to shove him closer to Keith though, and that hardly has him complaining. He just readjusts, pulls Keith in and tucks his head under his chin. Casual.

“Not true, it works every time on Shiro because he’s a big fucking softie underneath all those battle scars and hunky man muscles.” Lance counters, his tone mischievous. 

“You know, before you joined the pack people used to treat me with respect, with formality.”

“Yeah, and you hated it.” The amount of unwavering certainty in Lance’s voice is hard to believe. He talks to Shiro like he would a friend, nothing like Keith had always addressed his own master. The very sight of it has him biting his lip, waiting for Shiro to snap, to get angry. “You don’t want to be feared, you wanna be friends. I helped make that happen by knocking your ego down a peg or two. If anything, I was a blessing to this pack and you owe me a favor, so why don’t we let Keith join?”

“It’s… complicated.”

“Come on, I can see how much you care.” Lance presses on. “He needs us, Shiro. He needs to have a home, a family, a place where he belongs. And we need him, he understands shit about vampires that we would never be able to wrap our heads around. He’s like a secret agent.”

“You’re pretty serious about him. Do you think he’s your mate?

“Shiro! You can’t just  _ ask _ that!” Lance screeches again, and this time someone throws a fork at him from across the table. He catches it with an impressive show of reflexes, never once taking his eyes off of where they’re boring into Shiro’s in complete outrage. “He’s right there, he can _ hear _ us!”

“Mates?” Keith repeats, curiously. Lance just dissolves into a pile of goo next to him, babbling useless gibberish to try and change the topic, desperation heavy in his throat. He’s begging Keith not to press it, not to continue, which is exactly why Keith turns to Shiro expectantly.

“Life mates. We all have at least one. It’s not necessarily romantic even, sometimes it’s just platonic, any form of relationship is welcome. It is the highest form of bond, it goes beyond love, it’s on an entirely different level. A werewolf without a mate is a lonely life indeed, to be filled with that ability to devote oneself to someone and to not have found your person yet. It’s intrinsic. Instinctive.” Shiro explains, offering a helpful smile as he actively ruins Lance life apparently. Lance is glaring at him something fierce, totally pissed by the whole topic. It’s strange, Keith can’t wrap his head around why.

“Oh.” He turns to Lance. “Do you think… I’m yours? Is that why you’re freaking out?”

“Nope, no, no way. Not happening. This conversation is not taking place in front of my entire pack, I will never live it down if I say the wrong thing.” Lance is stuttering uselessly over his words now, on the very brink of combustion if his reddening face is anything to go by. Keith has never seen him look so very far from his comfort zone. He looks completely beside himself with shyness, with a fear of rejection. It’s nothing like the confident and calm way Lance has always approached him before, never any pressure to be anything more than they were. 

This must mean a lot to him.

And clearly, everyone else registers as much too. A chorus of awed and amused laughter fills the room, a couple people even straight-up congratulating Lance. All the while, the brunet seethes silently, blushing from top to tail behind the collar of his jacket. He’s so flustered, his eyes frequently darting to Keith to gauge his reaction and then flickering away just as fast.

Keith can’t wipe the smile from his face if he tries.

“Life mates, huh? Sounds like a pretty heavy commitment.” Keith jokes, trying to break the tension and bring Lance back to himself. It only has him freaking out more though, a pathetic squeak as he dutifully avoids looking Keith in the eye. Keith is so caught up in watching Lance’s reactions, he doesn’t even notice until Shiro is standing behind him, settling a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s nice to meet you, Keith.” Shiro extends his hand and Keith takes it, eyes wide. He shakes Shiro’s hand at the awkward angle, mesmerized by the power that seems to radiate off of it. “Welcome to the pack.”

“Shiro!” Lance exclaims happily, pulling Keith into a clumsy hug and interrupting their hand shake.

“He’s a vampire!” Someone shouts again, as if anyone needs the reminder. Keith ignores them, letting himself be lovingly mauled by Lance. He feels… good, about this. So good that he can’t even bring himself to care about the negativity.

“And? Do you have a problem you’d like to discuss? You can set up a meeting later today and we can weigh the issue formally. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear it.” Shiro looks around the whole table, but even with the dominance behind the order, his eyes are kind and open to input. Approachable, in the simplest of terms. No one tries to argue any further. “I expect everyone to treat him the same as they would any new addition, understood?”

“Yes, Alpha Shirogane.” The words are the same out of every mouth, but the tone varies greatly, some even sounding sarcastic. Keith shifts awkwardly, trying to swallow around the lump in his throat. Lance’s hand finds his under the table, fingers weaving between his and squeezing.

“Hey.” Shiro’s hand squeezes Keith’s shoulder. Attempting to provide… reassurance? This is all so new and confusing, it’s like the night he got turned into a vampire all over again. “It’s okay, Keith. We don’t expect you to blend in seamlessly, even the new wolves don’t do that. I just want you to know you have people you can come to. You have a place here, we have your back if it comes down to it.”

“Thank-you.” Keith says immediately, because the words have a mind of their own. He needs Shiro to know how much he appreciates it, even if he doesn’t fully understand any of this yet. He definitely knows that they’re going out of their way for him, and no one has ever done that for him before now. 

“Why don’t you guys go outside, talk it over.” Shiro suggests, nodding his head toward Lance. In an instant, Lance is on his feet and dragging Keith along by their interlocked hands. He rattles on as he leads Keith through the back door, settling on a worn porch swingset and pulling Keith down practically into his lap. 

Keith settles there, still bristled, not entirely sure he’s comfortable with making himself so comfortable in a stranger’s home. Lance had assured him earlier that Shiro’s human mate Adam wouldn’t mind, that he considers his house to be the hub for the whole pack, but still...

“What do you think, Red?” Lance asks, cutting himself off. Keith isn’t even entirely sure what Lance had been talking about before, so caught up in his own head. He looks up now though, at the sound of Lance’s incredibly gentle voice, the feel of his fingertips tracing Keith’s face. “I know they’re kind of too much to deal with at first, but you learn how to drone them out after a while. Besides, you could put anyone here in their place if you needed to, so don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself.” 

“Shiro seems nice.” Keith offers quietly, the only tidbit of conversation he feels up to right now, the most plainest of observations. Lance takes it and runs with it though, does all the talking for both of them, and Keith finds he doesn’t mind that nearly as much as he used to. In fact, he kinda likes the relief it brings him, being able to just lay his head on Lance’s chest and listen, rather than worry about what he’s gonna say next.

“Nice? Dude’s a fucking saint. He stumbled across me the night of the full moon after the nightmare that was my first transformation, didn’t even attack me for wandering into his territory as a wolf. It was like he understood how lost and terrified I was, despite the fact that I had no idea how to communicate in that form yet. He just led me back to the others and from then on I was part of their pack, family. He never looked back. Hell, he didn’t even know me. He didn’t know anything about me, just that I needed someone and he was willing to be that someone.” Lance pauses to take a breather, his hand settling atop Keith’s head and idly toying with his hair. He curls long strands around his fingers, braids it mindlessly, runs his nails across Keith’s scalp. “God, I can’t wait for you to get to know him better. You guys are gonna get along so well it’s gonna be  _ annoying _ .” 

And well, screw him for finding that hard to believe.

Not because he doesn’t like Shiro, nothing like that. He’s already really impressed by the leader, almost awed by how he manages to govern such a hectic group of people while still holding true to his morals and his kindness. No, Keith likes Shiro just fine, admiration swelling in his chest from the moment they formally met this morning, before Lance had even awoken.

Keith just can’t imagine Shiro liking him back, feeling anything at all similar to that for Keith. They’re nowhere near being on equal ground. Keith is a lost, lonely, volatile boy without a place to call home, now maybe more than ever before in his life. Shiro has everything.

“You really think so?” Keith says finally, a tiny trace of hope behind the question that he can’t swallow down no matter how he tries. As overwhelming as all of this is, the fear Keith’s feeling isn’t because he doesn’t want it. It isn’t the crawling sensation of waking up alone in a dungeon with the craving for blood for the first time, immediately knowing that you’re somewhere you don’t want to be. Keith’s anxiety has nothing to do with wanting to get away, and everything to do with how much he wants to stay.

God, how he wants Lance to be right. He wants to believe he’s deserving of an environment like this, supportive and loving, even in all of the chaos. He wants to know truly and wholeheartedly that he can live up to Lance’s expectations of him, that he really is the person Lance hypes him up to be.

He wants to impress Lance, even still. Even now that they’re lovers instead of rivals, even now that they have everything out on the table between them. He wants to be good enough.

“Yeah, absolutely.” Lance says easily, pressing a kiss to the mess of black hair on Keith’s head. He lingers there, nuzzling and inhaling sharply. “You’re gonna do great here, I know you are.” 

“I just think it was really cool of him, to respect and trust you like that. He doesn’t know me either and he has more reason to distrust me than anything, but he took your word for it. I think he’d made up his mind before he even addressed me. It’s new to me to see an authority figure that cares, that’s all.”

“We’re sort-of like one big family. I mean, yeah, he’s the boss and what he says goes. If he were anyone else he’d probably abuse that power over us every once in a while, even just to make decisions that the group didn’t approve of for their own benefit. But he always consults with us, wants every important decision to be made as a group.” 

“I like that.” Keith offers shyly, hoping to encourage Lance to keep talking. His voice is soothing, gentle as it is, almost lulling Keith to sleep. He snuggles in closer, pressing his face into Lance’s chest so hard it almost hurts, but he desperately craves it. He listens to Lance’s heartbeat, a steady rhythm, grounding when everything else feels so up in the air.

“Letting you into the pack is the only thing he’s ever made up his mind on and refused to take criticism of. That’s pretty huge.” Lance whispers, sounding the slightest bit awed himself. Keith doesn’t know how to take that, doesn’t know if he should feel proud or guilty. He hopes the others aren’t spiteful toward him because of it.

“I guess so.” Keith mutters, a soft sigh escaping his lips.

“They’ll warm up to you, don’t worry about it.” Lance speaks up, his tone surprisingly serious all of the sudden, firm. Keith has no idea how Lance read his thoughts well enough to know exactly where his worries were in that moment, but he did. He did and he comforts Keith with such confidence that it’d be impossible not to believe him. “Before you know it, you’ll be running with the big dogs. Literally.”

“Shut-up.”

“Make me.” Lance sing-songs back, cupping Keith’s chin to tilt his head back. Their eyes meet and Keith feels immediately smothered by the honey-warm affection displayed so plainly across Lance’s face. There isn’t a sign of doubt there, no second-guessing himself whatsoever. Just pure loyalty and fondness.

Keith averts his eyes.

“It’s not the end of the world if they don’t warm up to me. I know we have our differences and they’re right to be skeptical of me. Me being here is putting all of you in danger. Don’t try to argue with me, Lance, I know what I am.” Keith tries to ignore the sting of tears. “I’m a  _ monster _ .”

“You’re not a monster.” Lance groans, frustration showing. It isn’t directed at Keith though, not as much as it’s directed at the faceless coven that took his individuality away, stomped on what little worth he’d managed to find for himself growing up alone in the world. “Look, they give all the new recruits a hard time at first, it’s like a frat or something where they haze you for the first couple weeks. They get over it. And even now, if it came down to it, I think any one of us would lay down our lives to help protect you. That’s just how we are, man, we’re loyal from day one. We care about each other. Sure, maybe there’s a couple close-minded ones that might take longer to get used to the idea of you being here, but they can tell how much I care about you and they care about me enough to respect it.”

“Well, at least I know there will always be one person who wants me here.” Keith muses. He still won’t look Lance in the eye, especially not now. It’s too embarrassing. “He might be the most important one too, but don’t tell him I said that because he already has a huge ego.”

“That’s not the only thing of his that’s  _ huge _ , am I right or am I-” Keith slaps a hand over Lance’s mouth, scowling deeply. Lance is giggling into his palm, bright and airy, albeit muffled.

“Don’t make me regret this.”

“You won’t regret it.” Lance says, as Keith pulls his hand away. He wipes the smile from his face, laughter fizzling out slowly. The seriousness is back now, those blue eyes set in determination, like he won’t stop until he’s sure that Keith believes every word he’s saying. “I mean it, Keith, you’re gonna like it here. Even if… if things don’t work out between us... romantically. I want you to stay here. You deserve to be surrounded by people who respect you as an individual and not just as a soldier to do their bidding. You’re not expendable.”

“Jesus, there you go again.” The exasperation is uncanny.

“I was being genuine!” Lance defends himself, throwing his hands up in the air between them. It’s a personal kind of outraged though, privately dramatic just for Keith, nowhere near as offended as his actions allow for. “Do you have to fight me on everything I say, what is your prob-”

“You.” Keith interrupts him, stretching up to place a kiss to Lance’s lips mid-outraged shout. He kisses him into silence, until Lance calms down and forgets his theatrics enough to kiss back. His hand settles on Keith’s face so lightly it almost seems uncertain, like despite everything they did together the night before Lance felt nervous touching him now. Maybe he feels nervous  _ because  _ of the night before. If the edible arrangement before had been anything to go by, Lance feels a lot of guilt when he loses control, and he’s probably worried he’d gone too far again.

Keith isn’t nearly as good at this whole comforting thing as Lance is, but he tries to convey how he feels with the kiss. Soft and gentle, appreciative almost as he licks into Lance’s mouth. There’s no rush, no competition fizzling beneath the surface, no sexual tension waiting to be undone. It’s just easy. Keith has no where he’d rather be than sitting half in Lance’s lap and claiming his mouth. Even his fangs are being cooperative, staying up in his gums for the first time he can remember in Lance’s presence.

He pulls back minutes later, but only to clutch Lance’s face tighter and press their foreheads together, drawing heavy shared breaths. “You. You are my problem.”

“ _ Keith _ .”

“Just when I start to fall back into our comfortable routine of bickering you always have to throw some curveball my way. You say the sweetest shit like it’s nothing, like it’s second nature to you. Then I’m left scrambling to keep up with it, to make sense of it. Even when I was being a total asshole to you, you were always so open with how you felt about me.” Keith’s voice cracks, getting unreasonably worked up about this now of all times. It’s been sitting heavy with him for a while though, since the very moment he realized Lance’s feelings for him were not only genuine, but that Lance was aware of that fact. He’d been trying so hard for so long, anything to get Keith to look twice at him. Patient, so patient. 

“It’s okay.” Lance assures him, pressing a quick peck to his lips again. And again. “It’s okay, baby.”

“Is it? It might be awhile before I’m on your level when it comes to talking about this stuff. I don’t want you to feel neglected or anything.” Keith whispers into the space between kisses, praying that Lance will understand like he always does. He trusts Lance. “I want to be with you, though. I always have.”

“Keith, all I want is to be with you.” Lance smiles. “I will wait as long as it takes.”

“Really?”

“Really, Keith. I can be patient when it matters.” Lance leans back, lips twitching with the urge to ward off another wolfish grin. “I mean, damn, I’ve been following you around like a lost puppy for how long now?”

“Yeah, because you think I’m your  _ mate _ .”

“It’s not like with humans and marriage, okay? When you find your mate, you just _ know _ . Why do you think I stuck around even when you acted like a major pompous vampire asshole? The moment I saw you everything about it just felt right. It was like coming home. There was never a shred of doubt in my mind that you were supposed to be mine and I was yours. We had our shit to work through, but I knew we’d figure it out, I wasn’t gonna let us not.”

“Thank-you, for being patient.” Keith whispers, the words so genuine and heartfelt that he’s not sure if they’ll carry in anything other than this ghost of a voice. Keith stares deep into Lance’s eyes, feeling like soft edges and warmth, nothing like the sharp cool blade of a person he’d been before knowing Lance. He’s better for it, he thinks. Much better. “I know it’s not in your nature.”

Lance looks taken aback for a moment, but he quickly wipes the awed look off of his face, replaces it with something more familiar. The smirk is definitely familiar, seared into Keith’s mind from all the times Lance had come onto him in the past.

“I mean, I’m no saint, don’t get me wrong.” The words are laced heavy with intent as Lance’s hand settles on his inner thigh and squeezes hard, nails digging into Keith’s flesh. Lance’s hand climbs higher and higher, settling between Keith’s legs and applying teasing pressure to where the seams of his borrowed jeans meet. 

“Lance!”

“Breakfast was great, but now I’m hungry for something else.” Lance flashes the sharp points of his teeth, runs his tongue across them with a familiarity that has Keith’s own fangs sliding down in his mouth in one aggressive push. He hisses at the pain, the pinprick of bone sliding through soft gum. Lance leans in close to him, eyes pooling with lust. “Hungry... like the wolf.”

“If you ever try to put your hands down my pants while quoting Duran Duran again, I will end you.”

**Author's Note:**

> yes, i wanna get rawed by a werewolf!! i said it!!! we were all thinking it, but i fucking said it!!!!
> 
> someone HAS to take the plunge and put this content out into the world bc i fucking know for a FACT that i am not the only one out here that wants to read this shit, i KNOW im not!! me, age 12, reading twilight: ok but where's the werewolf sex scene
> 
> well, folks, im here to tell you that its here. HERE is the werewolf sex scene. in a judgment free zone. live young, die fast, get fucked by a werewolf in the ass
> 
> goodniGht
> 
> @melancholymango is my main on twitter/tumblr  
@redgaysonly is my nsfw acc on twitter
> 
> ps: its my birthday today (oct 11th) and so i have a free pass to post whatever kinks i want, sorry i dont maketh the ruleths!!


End file.
